


The Prince's Mage

by giraffesarebetterthanyou



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Benrook is very much a SIDE ship, Drama, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Slow Burn, Steampunk, They all have angst, This is absolutely a weird mix of multiple elements, ben has angst, benrook - Freeform, everything and everyone has angst, gwen has angst, gwevin - Freeform, kevin has angst, might be some side Ben/Rook
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 55,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffesarebetterthanyou/pseuds/giraffesarebetterthanyou
Summary: Gwen Tennyson lives in a kingdom that once was the brightest union of aliens and humans living in harmony.Now the kingdom is split into two, cities throwing out aliens back into Undertown and a war is stirring from the chaos of it all.The Plumbers are trying to hold the kingdom together, an alien prince is assumed dead but he is far from it, and not to mention the various alien hunters that are stealing Plumber tech on top of it.Gwen lives with her brother Ken in a small human town and she wants more than anything to get out, but at what cost?A Ben 10 Beauty and the Beast AU
Relationships: Kevin Levin/Gwen Tennyson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	1. Gwendolyn Tennyson's Terribly Mundane Life

Life for Gwen Tennyson was simple and easy. Her small town was only populated by humans, everyone knew each other, her brother was an engineer in town, and she kept to herself and minded the towns book shop occasionally. That’s how Gwen’s life went. Simple and easy.

Gwen is reading in her nook against the window like any other day. She feels the warmth of the sun on her face, and when she takes a brief pause, she watches the birds. She’s at peace for the time being.

Her whirlwind of a brother changes that quickly. Ken barges in arms flailing in his mushed together speech he’s saying as he pants. She can’t understand a word if she’s honest.

“Ken-” She tries to interrupt him.

“I mean really Gwen this is a _once_ in a lifetime opportunity I would be stupid-” Ken continues to talk already far ahead of what Gwen can even comprehend his story is.

“Ken I can’t-” She tries again.

“I have to go right? That’s the only logically solution-” Ken keeps going not even hearing his sister in his excitement.

“Ken! Please, I don’t know what in the world you are talking about! Start over.” Gwen finally raises her voice in annoyance but with a hint of mirth.

Ken finally stops pacing around and waving his hands, which he seems to be holding a flyer in.

“Oh, Gwen it’s the best thing to happen to me since- well since ever! Look.” Ken hands over the flyer to Gwen in excitement.

Gwen reads over it while still listening to her brother. “The Plumbers, you know the ones who _run_ our kingdom, are looking for new engineers! This is a once in a lifetime chance. Gwen I could make more money than before, and we could live in the capital!”

Gwen nods her head as she listens to her brother, “Ken, do you even know what the Plumbers do?” Gwen asks in all seriousness.

Ken pauses in his excitement, “No but I don’t really need to.” He frowns grabbing the flyer from Gwen. “Don’t you understand, they need an engineer and I’m the best in this town-”

Gwen interrupts him, “You’re the only engineer in this town Ken-” she looks up to see his frown turn into a small glare. “Sorry, continue.”

“Thank you!” Ken’s sour face leaves once more turning into a smile to taunt his sister, “Gwen it doesn’t matter what they do! The Plumbers live in the capital, their base is at the old castle the royal family used to reside. They need an engineer and I could be the one they need. We don’t have to scrape by anymore if I go and I get this job!”

Gwen pauses and listens to what her brother is suggesting. He wasn’t wrong, this really could provide for them and they would be well off. Out of this small town.

“Okay, so what do you have to do?” She asked him.

Ken smiles at her and continues, “I need to prepare some of my best work and bring it to the fair they’re holding at the capital. Once at the fair they’ll interview me and ask me about my projects.” He was already gathering some of the supplies and materials he stored in their house and not his workshop.

She nods and picks her book back up to continue her reading, “Sounds like you need to prepare some of your best inventions then huh?” she smiles softly.

Ken grins and kisses Gwen on her forehead. “I’ll see you later I’m going to my shop. Can you handle dinner?”

Gwen rolls her eyes, “Yes, go, I can handle that. Just be here by sundown.”

“You’re the best! I love you.” Ken said before leaving.

Gwen continues to read her book until she had to leave her windowsill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is lliterally just me projecting a Beauty and the Beast AU I've always wanted since I was like 13.  
> Follow me on Tumblr to see some of the artwork I'm making for this as well!  
> jhilsara.tumblr.com


	2. The Little Blue Book

The week goes on and Ken is hardly seen by Gwen. He stays holed up in his workshop continuously working on his inventions. Which is more than fine for her. She finally has time to focus on her own personal work for once. 

Gwen shuffles around under her bed and grabs her small hidden stash of books. Gwen pulls out a book the size of her hand, the cover is a dark shade of blue with embossed designs covering it. No title covers the book, but Gwen knows what this book is. 

She quickly looks around and waits to see if she can hear Ken coming inside from downstairs. Once she knows it’s clear she softly lets out a breath she was holding. 

Gwen closes her door and the curtains in her small window and goes to sit in the middle of her room. 

She takes a deep breath and focuses on her breathing. She lets herself feel the energy in the room and herself. She takes a deep breath before speaking, clearly with intention, “ _Illuminatus_ ” 

Gwen’s hands begin to glow with a bright blue light. 

Gwen’s face beams with excitement, “I did it! I finally did it, yes!” Gwen holds her hands up and sees how she lights up her bedroom on her own. Gwen tries to focus the spell to only be in her right hand, with enough concentration, her left hand stops glowing. 

Gwen squeals a tiny bit with glee. This is the farthest she’s gotten with this spell. 

Gwen opens her spell book and sorts through it, using her hand as a reading light. She comes across another spell she had been working on and tries that next. 

Gwen holds her hand out and focuses on the object on her dresser. She focuses and with intent says, “ _adducere_ ” 

The small hairbrush levitates off her dresser and shakily floats toward her enveloped in a blue light. The hairbrush makes it halfway to her before it clatters to the floor. 

Gwen sighs in disappointment before trying again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stupid amount of time I've been on the Ben 10 wiki looking at Gwen's spells and then figuring out what latin would work for other spells was ridiculous and I don't want to talk about it.


	3. Ken Visits the Capital

The day finally comes for Ken to venture off to the fair for the Plumbers. He has his inventions tucked under a protective tarp in a cart attached to their horse to be transferred over at the train station that will lead into the capital. 

“Now you are sure you have everything you need?” Gwen asks Ken while holding his bag filled with necessities. 

“Yes, yes, I swear I have everything!” Ken chuckles at his sister. “I promise I double, and triple checked that I have what I need Gwen, you worry too much!” 

Gwen frowns at her brother, “I’m just asking Ken, you always forget something you know.” 

Ken rolls eyes at his sister, “I’m not going to forget anything this time okay? This trip is way too important.” he emphasizes his point by enforcing his protective straps to keep his beloved machinery safe. 

Gwen hands over his bag. “Just be careful okay?” She hugs her brother tightly. 

“Call me when you arrive okay?” Gwen told him. 

“I’ll do what I can, if anything you’ll get the post in two days." Ken kisses his sister’s forehead before mounting his horse. “I’ll see you soon Gwen!” 

Ken waves goodbye and rides off toward the closest station. 

Ken upon arriving at the capital found himself, completely and utterly lost. He looks around in his satchel for the flyer that has the location of the fair but comes up blank. 

If only Ken had listened to his sister and made sure he didn’t forget anything. 

With a distressed screech he exclaims, “I have to have this flyer; I have no other way of knowing or getting directions!” Ken mumbles under his breath, “Gwen also can’t know she was right, or I’ll never hear the end of it.” 

Ken completely flips his bag out onto the road he’s on and still cannot find the flyer. Ken let’s out a heavy sigh. What was he to do now? He had accounted his time to arrive just exactly in time to set up for the fair, he couldn’t afford to stay anywhere for more than the days of the fair. He supposed he could ask someone, but who knows how long it would be before he could find someone on the road. By then he might be too late for registration. 

Ken looks up in despair at his own incompetence but spots the castle just beyond, knowing it’s the first sign before entering the capital. 

His face lights up quickly, “Of course! It must be in the old castle. That is where the Plumbers headquarters are. Where else could it be?” Ken sets out in the direction of the large over looming castle, content in his decision. 

Ken makes his way up the palace steps, feeling a little uneasy. For a fair that was so heavily advertised the place seems barren. “I might be too late...” Ken mutters to himself while approaching the door. 

Ken opens one of the large doors to the castle and enters. The place is empty with little furniture in the front entry. A few dusty tables and curtains pulled making the front entry seem even colder than it feels. Ken feels a shiver run down his spine. He continues to make his way down the long, dark hall. He can see the doors that must lead to the throne room. He quickens his pace. 

A clatter is heard near him and Ken jumps. He looks quickly around to find the source of the noise. He can spot a silver candlestick holder in the floor but a foot away from him. 

Suddenly a large, much too large to be normal, sized opossum scurries quickly past him in the dark. 

Ken, without looking back, bolts for the door that leads to the throne room. He pulls the doors open as hard as he can and flies into the room slamming them shut behind him. 

Ken heaves and shuts his eyes tightly; he is almost certain that wasn’t an opossum at all. 

He levels his breathing out and tries to grasp his bearings. When Ken finally opens his eyes, he doesn’t know what to settle on first. 

The throne room is as large as one would expect a throne room to be. One large throne sits on the rise where it belongs, but it’s covered in a cloak. Ken thinks it must be in respects to the young king who died. 

He looks around and notices the large windows that would light up the large room, if the curtains were not pulled shut. Ken thinks that for the Plumbers headquarters, this castle looks pretty bleak. 

Ken moves forward into the room, being overly cautious if the large creature in the entrance hall taught him anything. 

Ken can barely even see evidence of Plumbers being located from this building. In fact, it truly seems abandoned. The curtains are pulled tightly closed, there’s an overlay of dust on almost everything, but not nearly as much as he would have thought for a building to be abandoned for ten or so years. Overall, he was confused. 

Finally, Ken notices that there are no signs of the Plumbers fair being held here at all. Ken’s face pales. He not only is lost but has maybe lost any chance at a better job for him and his sister. 

Before he can think even more on the matter though a large figure appears in the upper level in the shadows. Ken lightens up at that, it must be a Plumber. 

“Hello? I seem to be lost!” Ken calls up to the large shadowed figure. “I was trying to find the Plumbers fair, for engineers but I seem to have mistaken where it was being held.” Ken’s excitement falters slightly at the unmoving figure. 

“You couldn’t happen to point me in the right direction... could you?” Ken asks almost meekly. 

The large shadowed figured did not speak, but it did move, and quickly. The figure leaps from the balcony on the second floor down to the ground near where Ken is. As the figure slowly approaches Ken, he realizes something, this figure was much bigger than he originally thought. As he kept encroaching onto Ken without a word, he grew enormously. 

Ken was starting to shake and feel a sense of dread at what was before him. A large mutated mess of an alien stands before him. Towered over him even. 

The alien has a mangled mismatched face, with more eyes than needed on one side of his face. One arm, now upon closer inspection, is completely hardened and stiff in a crystalized sort of material. His other arm lit up in a flame as he approaches Ken. 

This alien, monster, mutated mess, Ken is not sure of what he is, but he is sure that he wants nothing to do with this menace. As Ken looks upon him more, the more he notices how unmatched his body truly is. He has four arms, only two of which seemed to match in a garish orange fur. He carries wings on his back that seem too small to carry his large frame, and he has a long whipping tail that trails behind him. Ken did not know what he was, but he has heard enough about aliens in recent to know that any time of peace between them and humans is ending in a war soon. 

Ken quickly starts backing up in fear and reaching around for his own weapon he carries. 

“I don’t know what you are, but this castle is for Plumbers and you are invading! What have you done with the Plumbers?!” Ken held up his weapon to shot at the beast if it came closer to him. 

“Excuse me?” The alien’s voice came out scraggily as a mushed together gargle of separate vocal cords that shouldn’t be together. 

“Look kid, I think you got the wrong idea here-” The alien steps closer to Ken and as soon as he does, Ken shots. 

The alien avoids the attacked easily, moving much faster than Ken could ever hope to see. Ken in a panic furiously looks around to try and spot the monster. 

“Where are you!?” Ken shouts. “You won’t get away with this treason!” 

“Now you’re getting a little aggressive here aren’t ya bud?” A new voice pops up. 

Before Ken can address this new person, he suddenly feels a prickling sensation in his neck, the room spins around him. As he falls harshly onto the stone floor, he can vaguely see two figures approach him. He can’t move. He can barely hear them speak in hushed tones. The last thought Ken has before he slips is _‘Gwen, don’t hurt Gwen’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter by far but I'm having a lot of fun.


	4. A Prince and a Rodent

The large mutated alien stands over the small human who has broken into the castle. He is honestly less than impressed at the whole affair. With most of the Plumbers being gone for the engineer fair he thought he would finally have some peace and time to himself, a luxury he hasn't had in quite a few years. Being alone is a privilege and one that was revoked from him at a young age. 

Alas something much more serious seems to be imposing on one of his few days off. 

The overly large opossum like creature Ken saw earlier leans over the human man plucking his own needle from his neck. 

“What a lunatic. What does he think coming in here and just attacking the first alien he sees!” the rodent like alien scoffs poking the man. 

The larger one sighs and responds, “You know how they are now, think every alien is out to kill them.” he lets out a gruff noise one might call a laugh. “Can’t blame this one though, I do look grotesque.” 

The mutated assortment of aliens lifts the limp man up with one of his Vulpimancer arms and stalks off. 

The smaller one scurries after, trying to keep up with his companion's large strides. 

“Where are ya taking him Kevin?” 

“What does it look like I’m doing Argit? I’m going to toss him in the dungeons until Max and Ben get back. Then they can decide what to do with him. Especially since I’m not supposed to be seen by the mass populous remember?” Kevin’s voice was thick with annoyance. 

Kevin makes his way out of the throne room and into one of the many dark halls navigating him and Argit to the dungeons. The dead weight in one of his many arms feeling like nothing more than a two-pound weight. 

“I’m sure those two will be just thrilled at that.” Argit snickers obnoxiously. 

“I don’t know what you’re going on about Argit, that fair is going to take over a week. They sent that news out to anywhere with a pulse point in the kingdom. Which means that someone has to watch this guy and feed him.” 

Kevin makes an abrupt turn and doesn’t bother slowing his pace for his smaller companion. Argit had never strayed far from Kevin before when it benefited him. If Argit deemed something not worthy of his time he’d slither off to the shadows like he always had before. 

Argit does squint at Kevin while the clunky gears in his tiny head spin slowly. 

“Wait- Kev! No, no way! I am _not_ a baby sitter for a human! Especially one that just jumps on any alien that comes within two feet of the guy.” Argit exclaims crossing his arms like a toddler. 

“Too bad Argit, I’m not doing it. As your crowned prince I'm commanding you do this. Take care of him and make sure he doesn’t starve to death or anything. The last thing I need is that old man breathing down my neck about a human seeing me and not going through the proper channels to make sure he doesn’t blab.” 

Argit groans loudly and throws his head back in annoyance. 

“I hate it when you pull that ‘crowned prince’ schtick. It’s getting old Kev.” 

Kevin pushes through the passage that leads towards the dungeons. The passage hasn’t been used in almost a decade. The stones are mossy and damp and the passage descends lower. Kevin’s footsteps echo loudly with his Tetramand feet. Argit’s feet scurry behind him making small pitter patters in the dark. 

As the two descend down the darker the passage grows. 

“It’s almost as if it’s not a schtick and I am in fact the crowned prince Argit.” Kevin rolls his eyes and uses his Pyronite arm to light the many unlit torches on the wall. 

“Crowned prince, schmowned prince,” Argit throws his arms and swats at Kevin with the back of his hand. “When we met you were a runaway mutant stealing just to eat and I had to be the brains in our cons. Only one thing has changed and buddy it’s not your look.” he sneers at Kevin with a condescending tone. 

Kevin readjusts the human in his Vulpimancer arm and growls in frustration at his friend. “Listen Argit we both know you were never the brains in any con we pulled, now help me out and open the door to that cell.” 

Argit scrambles forward and pulls the cell door open, but not without making a dramatic scene of the whole thing. Huffing and puffing out his chest in exasperating breathes. One would think he has never lifted anything other than food to his mouth. 

Once the cell door is open Kevin sets the human down on cot in the cell. The cells have not been used in over a decade so the moss growing on the wet stones is enough to know that these damp quarters should not be a permanent residence. There’s a cool breeze coming from the cracks in the walls and a constant slow drip of water somewhere in the small room. 

Kevin sighs at the idea of leaving this man down here but Argit was right, he did try to attack him. He can’t have him running freely around his castle, with all the advanced Plumber tech laying around and no guards, it would not be in anyone's best interest. Kevin could already see the disaster he would be cleaning up. 

“Argit,” Kevin turns to his smaller rodent like companion. “You’ll give him three warm meals a day with water. Make sure that old toilet works too, and keep whatever heat you can down here. The last thing we need him getting sick. Max would never let me live that down.” Kevin’s voice is stern and threatening with the amalgamation of vocal cords working together. 

Argit is indifferent to the tone and rolls his eyes, “Yea yea yea, maybe you should be concerned about what this guy would blab to the public if he got out? Ya know maybe even outing you to the whole kingdom!” he hisses at Kevin.

Kevin uses his Pyronite arm to light the torches closest to the cell and to keep some semblance of warmth in the damp place. 

“Oh please Argit, no one would believe him. The Plumbers would denounce anything he said and label him as mad. You’re so paranoid.” Kevin starts to turn and make his way back out of the dungeons. 

Argit sighs and mumbles, “Maybe you _should_ be more paranoid. Especially considering the rumor of alien hunters running amuck.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually loved writing Kevin and Argit interacting way more than I thought I would.


	5. Mr. Baumann's Bookshop

Gwen is restocking the shelves of her towns small bookshop wondering what spell she wants to practice today when her thoughts are interrupted by her boss. 

“You’ve been here almost every day for over the past week Gwen.” her boss is a short stocky old man with horseshoe shaped balding white hair and a large belly. He looks intimidating at first but his face is kind though, the age in his face is all laugh lines and faded smiles. At least that’s what Gwen notices in his face. A concerned look is covering his face today though as he looks at her. 

“Not that I don’t appreciate it! I do, believe me, but haven’t you heard from Ken yet? He’s in the capital, right? With one of his inventions that I’m sure will blow everyone away,” he pauses and mumbles under his breath, “quite literally or figuratively who knows with that kid.” 

Gwen sighs and rolls her eyes at her boss and lightly shoves his shoulders, “I _heard_ that.” 

“Anyways,” Gwen is gathering a few more books to put away. Keeping her hands busy usually kept her mind at ease. “I’m sure he’s just excited and busy. He said he’d ring or send something in the post. It’s not like him to not send notice of his arrival.” She keeps her head down knowing if she looks at her boss, he’ll only give her that look he has when he feels sorry for her. She hates that look. He’s given her that look on too many occasions and most having to do with Ken and his dreams. 

“Gwen,” He steps towards her and takes the books out of her hands, “I’m just worried about you. After your parents had that accident,” Gwen visibly stiffens at that. “It’s just been you and Ken and all of those inventions of his. Remember when he burnt half of the barn down last winter!” Gwen laughs at that and finally looks up at her boss. 

There it is, that look, she hates it. She feels like a small child when he looks at her like that. She grabs the books back from him if not a little too harshly. “Yes, and I also remember that his wood chopping machine helped fix the barn significantly faster too.” She responds easily. “I believe in him Mr.Baumann, I wish everyone else did too.” 

Mr. Baumann sighs and rests his hands on his hips before continuing, “I know you believe in him Gwen, but don’t you have dreams or goals? Do you really want to stay in this bookshop forever?” he cocks a brow at her. 

She shoves the last book a little too harshly into its spot on the shelf before turning to Mr. Baumann. 

“Actually yes I am more than content to work here like a horse until you die and inherit this shop and pass it on to some poor soul that loves books as much as I do." She replies in a joking tone.

"My dreams aren’t anything big like his." She says a bit more seriously, "Ken, he has this drive to just want to make things easier. If not a bit unorthodox, he has that drive. I’m fine with being the landing to catch him when he aims too high.”

Gwen puts her hand softly on Mr. Baumann’s shoulder, “I’m serious when I say that there is nothing, I want more than to just help Ken. Someone has to keep him grounded.” She forces a smile on her face, it’s small and tight. 

Mr. Baumann looks at her seriously, and like many times before sees through her. He drops the topic though. He’s learned his lesson about arguing with Gwendolyn Tennyson when she believes she’s right a long time ago. 

“Why don’t you head on home Gwen? You’ve done enough today and I think the post should be there by now.” He smiles warmly at her and sends her out but not without some money for her time. 

Gwen checks the mailbox when she gets home. She does every day and every day she comes up with nothing. 

She’s been good at hiding her worries and pushing them aside about Ken, but it’s been over a week and she can’t help but continue to worry. She would post for him or call but he was insistent on finding a place to stay when he got there and not before he left. Again, not one of Ken’s brightest moments as of late. 

Gwen sighs and shoves the mailbox closed with a loud clang. She walks inside her house knowing she is going to focus on her spell work tonight to avoid any dreadful thoughts that have wormed their way into her brain. She was good at keeping busy, it eased her emotions to focus her brain on something other than her scatterbrained older brother. 

Gwen makes her way to her room and closes her curtains tightly. She pulls her money from Mr. Baumann out of her dress pocket and puts it on her bedside table. She’ll put it away later, right now all she wants to do is pull out her book and focus hard on the new spell she’s moved onto. 

The next morning Gwen wakes up and rolls to the side of her bed. She sits up, still drowsy with sleep in her eyes, and stretches her arms high above. 

“ _adducure_ ” she says with a yawn and holding her hand out toward her hair brush. 

With ease her hand glows blue and so does the energy around her brush as it glides across the room and lands perfectly in her hand. 

Gwen begins combing through her hair and throwing her long red hair into a pony tail before she gets dressed. Gwen’s eyes slide over to her bedside table and notices the money she left there last night. 

Gwen goes to grab it to put it away but pauses, this is more money than Mr. Baumann usually gives her. Sustainably more money than he ever pays her after a single day. 

Puzzled she counts it again and once more. Her boss has given her the amount of three days of work instead of one. She thinks it’s odd knowing how staunch Mr. Baumann was with money, she was his only employee after all, but as she counts once more, she frowns a knowing look crosses her face. 

Mr. Baumann has given Gwen exactly enough money to catch a train to the capital. She puts her money back on her bedside table and grabs for her stash under her bed. She counts everything she has saved from working for Mr. Baumann for the past six years. She has more than enough to stay somewhere in the capital if she goes in search of Ken. 

Before she makes a decision, she calls Mr. Baumann from her homes old and outdated phone. 

It only rings a few times before she hears the static of someone picking up the line. 

“Hello?” A groggy voice answers with a yawn. 

“Mr. Baumann, I’m sorry to call so early but I need to ask you something.” Gwen rushes out in a hurried tone. 

“Gwen? Dear, the sun is barley rising, what are you possible calling me about that can’t wait till you come in?” he asks. 

“Oh please Mr. Baumann, you don’t expect me at the shop today at all do you?” She infers. 

“Whatever could you possibly mean by that?” The mirth in his voice is not hidden well. 

“Mr. Baumann, I have worked for you for the past six years and yesterday you paid me exactly the amount I would need to take a train to the capital. You have never made a mistake with money once in that time.” Gwen insists in a tone that is accusing. 

“Gwendolyn! It sound like you are accusing me of something but I promise you I have done no such thing. I’m just getting senile in my age dear. It happens you know-” he doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Gwen cuts him off. 

“Not to you it doesn’t.” The line is quite from both of them. “Thank you.” She finally says. 

“It seems I’ll be shorthanded today then.” Mr. Baumann says over the line, Gwen can almost see the smile on his face. 

“It seems you will be for a few days. Can you handle it?” Gwen asks in all seriousness. 

His laugh is booming through the phone, “I’ve handled my shop for many years without you Gwen, I’ll be fine. I will _miss_ you though.” His tone is sincere and Gwen knows he is truthful when he says it. 

“I’ll miss you too. Thank you again Mr. Baumann.” She tells him softly. 

“Goodluck kiddo, and have fun.” Mr. Baumann hangs up and Gwen is left to her own thoughts. 

She goes to her room and packs the only suitable bag she has. It isn’t very big but that’s fine. She packs a few clothes, her necessities, and finally she shoves to the bottom of the bag her small spell book. 

She changes into her best travel clothes. They’re simple with a medium length cut blue skirt with an open loose long-sleeved blouse she tucks into the skirt. She puts her brown simple clothed corset over top. 

She slings her bag over her shoulder and puts her purse in her skirts pocket. She locks up her house and doesn’t bother to look back and she makes her way to the closest train station.   



	6. Ken's Cellblock Tango

It’s damp and smells musty in the cell that Ken’s laying in. He doesn’t know where he went wrong. He could probably start by not listening to Gwen. 

He groans and rolls over in his cot, it’s always a problem when he doesn’t listen to Gwen. 

Small footsteps can be heard in the distance and Ken’s body freezes. He knows it’s the weird porcupine opossum like alien that comes at least three times a day. He’s the only one Ken sees, and if he wasn’t absolutely frightened by the memory of the other much larger alien, he would assume he made that one up. He has yet to see the monstrous behemoth of a mutant but he feels like he’s being watching from every dark corner down here. 

“Here’s your lunch today, much like every other meal it’s soup.” he mutters shoving the meal and a glass of water through. 

Ken doesn’t move. He doesn’t interact with alien at all. His whole body is stiff and his body trembles slightly. 

Ken hasn't had the most life experiences with aliens, his small town was all humans, but he feels like this duo he's encountered are more powerful than the average. The large one, which Ken would much like to forget, seems to be the most fearsome of all.

Ken hears a scoff, “Ya know for a kingdom where human’s share with aliens you act like you’ve never seen one before. Shaking in your cot like I'm gonna assault you." 

“It’s not the aliens I’m worried about it’s the fact the Plumbers aren’t here and that, _monster_ is!” Ken sits up sending a weak glare at small alien before him. 

“Yeah, he’s a real monster alright, but if I recall you shot at him first didn’t ya?” the sarcasm is thick as he sneers and turns to leave the dungeons. 

Ken is left alone once more with a mediocre meal and his constant fear of how long he’ll be trapped underneath a living nightmare. 

Above Ken in the castle Kevin is pacing in the Plumbers work space. 

The Plumbers work space used to be what one would call the ball room. Times of dancing in this castle were far in the past though. The past decade the large space had been converted for the Plumbers. It's a mix match of cubicles lined all up and down the ball room. Spaces were different depending on the alien or human working. Work desks are covered in mountains of paper work and alien technology and many a blue print for various projects. Not to mention the countless open cases on various desks of the aliens who have gone missing in the city as of late.

Kevin's own desk sits near the back of the ball room. It's the largest, not by choice but by necessity. Kevin's bulky form is far too large for the average desk and chair.

Kevin’s large form is pacing up and down as he glances over the cubicle spaces for the hundredth time in the past week. If he doesn't find the information he needs before the next week is over he doesn't know how long the Plumbers can hold onto the control of the kingdom, his kingdom. 

A voice is heard from the hall, but Kevin knows it could only be one person, or rodent.

“Kev please tell me Ben will be here soon I can’t _stand_ that guy down there!” Argit all but groans as he comes into the large work space. 

“What did he even say? I thought he wasn’t talking to you Argit. Thought you’d be glad about that.” Kevin states as he starts rifling through one of the many cubicle spaces. He’s not even trying to be discreet and he goes through mountains of paperwork and personal items. He shoves one of the family photos over on the desk he’s at. 

“I don’t know he was going on about the Plumbers and you and honestly I started tuning him out-” Argit stops talking to see Kevin’s giant form all but destroy the desk he’s looking through. 

“Ya know maybe they should have left Ben here to go through the cubicles, you’ve only started going through one and it looks like the place got robbed.” Argit spits out. 

Kevin groans out and turns to his smaller companion, “Yea well Ben has the Omnitrix and if he didn’t go no one would think the fair was that important. And in case you forgot Argit we have a mole here and it surprisingly isn’t you.” 

Argit shoves Kevin’s large Petrosapien arm out of the way. “I’ll go through the belongings and put them back! I know how to make it look like nobody’s been here unlike you and your useless limbs! You should be checking the larger equipment to see if anything’s missing.” 

Kevin’s Pyronite arm lights up in his fuming rage, “Watch it you rat, you’re only here because Max thinks you can be useful. I could throw you out anytime and not feel an ounce of regret.” Kevin’s voice lowers and it’s moments like this that Argit doesn’t forget that Kevin knows how to use all of his alien powers and can be a fierce enemy. He’s seen it one too many times. 

Argit’s quills all stand up in fear, “Aw come off it Kev, I’m your best friend remember? We lived off the streets in Undertown for so long. You wouldn’t hurt your closest friend who kept you feed would you!” He’s clinging onto Kevin’s Petrosapien arm and all but blubbering. 

Kevin hardens his arm and Argit let’s go faster than when he abandons any con that has gone wrong. Or any time Kevin’s ever actually needed him. 

“Just go through the cubicles,” Kevin sharpens the Petrosapien arm and brings it up under Argit’s chin, “and don’t think I won’t notice if you hide anything from me. I’ve been through all your cons Argit. I don’t trust you by any means.” 

Argit visibly gulps and nods his head as aggressively as he can without cutting himself. 

“Anything ya say Kev! You know me I’d never try-” Kevin pushes into Argit’s throat lightly, “I’ll shut up and get to looking.” 

Kevin lowers his arm and stalks off still fuming. If he doesn’t come down, he’ll light something on fire and it could very well be Argit. Not that he would be losing much.

He knows that what is important is finding the mole in the Plumbers and it was a task Max left for him as they all cleared out for two weeks. Kevin’s not sure two weeks left with cubicles will lead to much though. Argit was right about one thing, he should check the equipment and weapons. That’s where everything seems to be missing as of late. 


	7. Trade Off

When Gwen steps off the train she realizes a few things. One, she’s further from the capital then she thought she would be. Two, Ken took the only paper that had the directions for the Plumbers Engineer Fair. 

Gwen ponders and paces on the outskirts of the train station, with other people periodically passing her by. 

Her eyes light up suddenly and she reaches in her small purse in her skirt pocket. She pulls out the small photo she has of Ken that she brought to see if anyone has seen him. 

“If I’m right his mana should still be on here. Besides me he’s the only one who’s touched it.” Gwen ponders to herself. 

Gwen takes a deep breath and focuses all her attention on the photo of Ken. She tries to sift through the mana that surrounds it. After pushing back her own residue she finally finds Ken’s. 

Gwen suddenly can see where his mana residue leads. There’s a clear path in front of her now. 

Gwen follows Ken’s trail through the first brush of the woods. Gwen knows that the woods surround the capital and that the castle is in front of the city. She knew she’d would be going through that area. 

What she wasn’t expecting was to see Ken’s mana go into the castle. 

Gwen continues to follow Ken’s energy trail inside. Once she’s inside she doesn’t make it past the entry way. She feels off. The energy in the castle is overwhelming for her. She feels as if there’s a hundred different people fighting for her attention all at once. 

Gwen has to stop and refocus her energy or she’s going to lose where Ken is. She holds onto the wall to keep herself up. She’s never experienced such a surge of energy in one place before. To be fair Gwen’s barely experienced much when it comes to magic, but this seems so overwhelming to her. 

She takes deep breathes and remembers to ground herself. She can feel the stone floor below her feet. She feels the cool wall under her hands. She smells the musty air around her. She hears the breeze outside as well as a soft dull hum of something inside the castle. When she opens her eyes, she can focus again on just Ken’s mana. She sees it leading through a much larger set of doors. 

She continues through and her head feels less foggy than when she first entered. Now her mind is centered more on where Ken could be in this large castle and why he’s even here to begin with. 

She pushes past what appears to be a throne room, but it is obviously not used in the same way it was before. Cobwebs litter every corner and a large amount of dust is gathering on the thrones that are near the end of the room. 

She looks away from the thrones to see the energy trail lead out through a different door into a hallway. She presses on but something continues to lurk in the back of her mind. She feels unwanted, like she's trespassing. The energy she can feel in the room makes the hair at the back of her neck stand and goosebumps run up her arms. Something is clearly off about this castle. 

She moves on into the hallway and notices Ken’s mana disappear once more into a new corridor. Gwen wonders when this maze will end or if she’ll be dragged all over this castle. 

Gwen freezes when she enters the new corridor. She’s faced with stone steps leading down further and further underground. The lanterns lining the wall are lit, but dim. The air is almost wet in this staircase and the moss growing on the stones proves it. She descends down and as she goes Ken’s mana does something strange, it seems to be growing and expanding. Like it’s taking up more space. Gwen’s sure if she tried to do this at home their house would just be a giant mass of her and Ken’s energy. She hopes she’s getting closer. 

Once at the bottom of the stairs Gwen can see much more clearly now. Cells line up and down and beyond into what she can only assume are many more cell blocks. The area is large and dark and above all damp. Leaking stones are a plenty down here under the castle it seems. Gwen’s not that surprised considering these dungeons probably haven’t been used in the past twenty years or so. Not since the Plumbers created a new system for criminals to the kingdom. 

Gwen focuses on Ken’s trail though. It’s gotten her this far so she can’t be that off from finding him. She follows the mana down just a couple of cells before she gasps. 

She’s found her brother, laying in a cot that seems to be barely held together by cloth she is positive is older than both her and her brother. The moth eaten holes are enough to prove that. 

“Ken?” Gwen states cautiously as she walks up to the bars. 

Ken’s body jerks suddenly, he sits up quickly and looks to Gwen, his eyes wide, almost in fear. 

“Gwen? What are you doing here? You have to go, _now_!” Ken whispers at his sister. He’s clambered over to the cell door holding on to it, trying to be as close to Gwen as he can. 

“What are you talking about Ken? We have to get you out of here!” Gwen states in a heated tone, unbelieving of her brother. 

She starts looking for weak points on the old cell door. 

“No Gwen you don’t understand. There’s a monster running this castle! He has a small rodent alien working for him, please Gwen you have to go. I can’t live with myself if you get caught up in my mistakes.” Ken is begging her to leave, to run. Gwen is more than baffled by her brother's statements. 

“Ken you’re babbling. I’m not leaving you! Tennyson’s stick together and that means forever. So, shut it and let me help you out!” Gwen groans out in frustration at her brother. “There was nobody here when I came in and I doubt they’ll notice that someone else is here.” 

Gwen backs up from the cell door and sees the different places of corrosion. Gwen gets an idea, “Ken you have to back up. I swear I will listen to whatever it is you have to say, but right now you need to back up against that wall.” Gwen says in a serious tone. 

Ken looks at her in confusion, “Gwen what are you-” he doesn’t get to finish his sentence before Gwen shots him a vicious look. 

“I said back up Ken, unless you want to get blasted.” Ken immediately back peddles far away from his sister. His face is still twisted in confusion. 

Gwen lifts her hands up and focuses all her energy. It’s a new spell and while in theory she knows what it should do in practice, with as little experience that she has, she’s unsure, “ _Eradiko_ ” she states firmly. 

Her hands scorch blue and a small mana ball leaves her hands. It hits the cell door where she spotted the corrosion and a small explosion sets off. It knocks Gwen back a few feet to the floor but the door is open and on the ground. 

Ken bolts up from where he was and grabs Gwen. 

“Come on we have to go now! Or that little rodent will find us, especially after that noise!” Ken is practically yelling as he helps her up. 

Gwen manages to balance herself again, but is holding her head in pain. She’s unsure if it’s from the kick back of the spell or how much energy that just took out of her. 

Ken has her wrist locked tight in his hand and he’s all but dragging Gwen back up the stairs from where she entered. 

Once at the top of the stairs the two siblings can hear footsteps coming towards them. They’re heavy and loud too. Ken panics and drags Gwen in the opposite direction of where she entered. The two are running down a hallway that neither of them knows where it leads. And they are hoping they can find an exit this way. 

“Ken let go of my wrist I’m fine now.” Gwen hisses at her brother, his death grip is starting to hurt and the adrenaline running through Gwen is keeping her focused. 

“Sorry Gwen,” Ken let’s go quickly, “so are we going to talk about what happened down there or where you planning to just keep that a secret from me?” Ken whispers at his sister as they make another turn into a completely different hall. The footsteps seemed to not have followed them, but they are not about to stop and find out. 

“Now really isn’t the time Ken! We need to find a way out of this castle. It goes on for ages!” Gwen responds deflecting the question. 

Ken jerks into a different hall with Gwen following, it seems to be going back towards the front of the castle. 

“Gwendolyn Tennyson.” Ken looks firmly at his sister. Even with the dirt and grim on his face from a week of captivity, he still finds time to look disappointed at his sister. 

“Ken really we don’t have time!” Gwen tries to reason with her older brother but his face just hardens. 

“Ken you are being absolutely ridiculous! I’ve been practicing magic okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? It saved you didn’t it? Now can we please just get out of this maze of a castle that you got lost in!” Gwen’s embarrassment and short temper raised her voice to be much louder than she intended. 

Both of the siblings stop and look at each other in silence, waiting to see if they’ve been heard. 

They think it’s clear until a scampering can be heard ahead of them. 

“Quick we have to turn back!” Ken whispers quietly and grabs Gwen's wrists, but as they turn back the way they came they can hear the much larger footsteps from earlier. 

Ken freezes with Gwen’s wrist in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do. Gwen can feel the fear rippling off her brother in waves. She isn’t sure what to do either and she’s pretty drained from the explosion from earlier. 

In the direction they're facing, from around the corner, comes the largest alien Gwen has ever seen. To be fair she hasn’t seen many, but this creature was by far one of the largest she’s seen. She starts assessing the disfigurement of the alien before her. 

Unlike Ken, who never really bothered with learning about the other creatures they shared a kingdom with, Gwen had studied on different alien species. Another hobby she had to do in secret. 

She can identify two of the arms as Vulpimancer and another as Pyronite, which is very confusing to her. The torso seems to be mainly Tetramand as well as the legs. That’s about all she can assess before realizing her brothers grip on her is a little too tight. She turns to look at Ken and finds him shaking and frozen in his spot at the mismatched alien before them. 

A voice is heard behind them, and Gwen twists slightly to see the much smaller rodent alien. 

“See Kev? Told you that guy couldn’t have broken out by himself!” His shrill voice is directed towards the alien ahead of her. 

“Yea I can see that Argit.” The gravelly voice that comes out is what surprises Gwen. It sounded like someone had crossed the wires of multiple different vocal cords. 

“Where did you put the weapon you used?” The larger one demands looking at Gwen. 

“Excuse me?” Gwen responds easily cocking her head in confusion. 

“The alien tech you obviously used to break him out.” He points at Ken. 

Gwen scoffs at the assumption, “I didn’t use any weapons. I don’t need them.” 

Ken’s hands move to grip at Gwen’s arm. “Gwen please just go, before something happens.” Ken whispers to his sister. He gently pushes Gwen behind him. 

“What are you going on about? You used something to break him out, which by the way he is trespassing and now it seems so are you.” The alien crosses all four of his arms over his chest. His patience is clearly wearing thin by how tight his jaw is clenched. 

The smaller one, Argit she remembers, snickers. 

Gwen realized that if she doesn’t do something quick her and Ken are going to be thrown back into those dungeons. 

Gwen can still see the slight shake in Ken’s body and comes up with a plan. 

“I used magic.” She states boldly stepping towards the large mixture of an alien. 

“Gwen-” her brother hisses at her but she cuts him off. 

“I didn’t know he was trespassing. He’s been gone for over a week and I used my magic to find him here.” Gwen continues. 

“Oh please!” Argit’s voice breaks through. He comes closer to Ken and Gwen, eyeing her up. “Kevin she has to be lying, it’s been centuries since a human could manipulate anything like mana. She has to be hiding a weapon! Or she’s a decoy-” 

“Argit shut up!” Kevin roars at him. His vocals shake the hall they are in and suddenly Gwen is quite fearful of the beast before her. 

“Show me.” Kevin says to Gwen, much calmer. 

“Excuse me?” She asks confused. 

Kevin scoffs at her before continuing, “I said show me. Argit’s right it has been over a century since a human could manipulate mana, so show me. If you can produce it, I’ll let him go.” Kevin states firmly. 

Ken moves in front of Gwen, holding her should to make her look at him. 

“Gwen no you can’t. He’s going to use you and I’ll never see you again. Please!” Ken’s voice is breaking in a rush to get out everything he wants to say to his sister. 

“Ken it’s fine.” Gwen’s voice is soft, reassuring. “I’m going to be fine Ken, but you? You have to go out into the world. You create and make things Ken, and they’re useful!” Gwen almost laughs, “God, you have goals you want to achieve. Do it, live your life, I’ll be fine.” Gwen pushes her brother aside. 

“Gwen-” Ken’s voice gets cut off by Gwen’s casting. 

“ _Illuminatus_ ” Gwen holds her right up as it glows a bright blue, illuminating more of the dark hallway they were in. 

“Argit, send him on his way.” Kevin states clearly, his eyes never leaving Gwen’s hands. 

“But Kev, what about Ma-” Argit begins. 

“I said, send him out Argit!” Kevin growls at his companion. 

Argit groans but agrees grabbing Ken easily. 

“Wait no! Please that’s my baby sister you can’t take her! Please I can-” Ken’s wails are cut off by Argit, pricking him once more with one of his quills. 

Gwen drops her hand and her spell disappears as she looks at Ken collapsed on the ground. 

“It’s fine he’s just knocked out. He’ll come to later.” Kevin says to Gwen in a forced soft tone. 

“Argit I’ll take him out. You’ll just drag his body around. Take her to an empty quarter and don’t let her leave your sight!” Kevin bellows out and walks over to Ken. He lifts him easily and tosses him under one of the Vulpimancer arms. 

“That I can do! Come one Red I’ll show you to your new digs.” Argit says grabbing for Gwen’s free hand. 

Gwen lets the small alien lead her away but she watches Kevin carry her brother until he turns a corner and vanishes from her sight. 

Gwen realizes she is alone now; she’s given her brother freedom but at the cost of her own. She doesn’t know how to feel really. She just lets Argit lead her as he babbles directions of random places in the castle to her. She’s not listening. Her heads getting foggy from the use of her powers so consistently back-to-back. If she’s honest she just wants to go to bed right now. That’s it, she thinks, she’ll go to bed and when she wakes up, she’ll realize this is just a silly dream. She went to bed reading again. That has to be what’s happening. 

Yes, when she wakes this will all just be a part of some weird story she was reading before bed. 

If she were honest, she would know she would never read a tale such as this. For right now, everything seems to be going wrong. 


	8. A New Mage Enters

Gwen has been sitting in a bedroom, that looks recently cleaned to her surprise, for what seems like forever with the opossum porcupine alien named Argit. 

The room is much bigger than her own back home. The bed is much larger than she needs and plush as well. It feels like no one has ever stayed in this room. The room is rich with ornate wooden furniture. It's a dark wood and the accents of fabric in the room are a rich deep Prussian blue. The fabrics on the bed are made up of constellation designs and Gwen's hands have been tracing them for a while. They almost shimmer with the silver threads that are connecting the stars together. 

Argit has stopped trying to hold a conversation after the little to no response Gwen gave. He just rests his opossum muzzle in his hand and lazily watches her or stares out the window. 

She’s so tired and honestly, she just wants to pass out. The adrenaline has warn off and nothing but exhaustion remains.

The bed she’s sitting on is more comfortable than anything she’s ever had before. The idea of resting in this luxurious bed along with her fatigue easily is enough to have her lay down. It’s the stranger in the room that keeps her mind awake. Even that though is starting to get pushed to the back of her mind as her eyes grow heavy.

Gwen’s body was begging her to sleep. She’s never used so much mana in such a quick succession. That explosion spell was new too, she’s surprised it worked in all honesty. 

She thinks, if she just rests her eyes, everything will be fine when she wakes. 

The dark elegant bedding swaddles her in a lull as well as the dark setting of the room. The sun shining through the window warms her body and makes her mind foggy.

When she falls asleep she doesn’t even pull the covers over her, the sun warming her enough. She puts her head on the softest pillow she’s ever felt, and she’s immediately is unconscious. Her body sags into the bed in relief and she dreams of nothing but constellations dancing in the sky. It’s the most peaceful she’s ever had. 

Hours pass before she wakes up, and the sun is setting when she opens her eyes. At first Gwen is confused by her surroundings. This isn’t her room and it’s definitely not her home. Then she remembers the stream of events that happened only a few hours ago. 

She groans in frustration and presses the heel of her hands to her eyes to rub the sleep off, but also to stop herself from thinking too hard about the situation she’s in.

She hears movement from behind her, on the other side of her bed. A shuffling of objects on the bedside table. 

A deep voice cuts through softly, “Ya know for being left alone with two strangers you fall asleep quiet easily.” 

Gwen sits up quickly and turns to face Kevin. He has set a tray down on the bedside table. It’s a warm dinner and a glass of water. 

Gwen eyes the food curiously, unsure if she should eat it or not. 

Kevin scoffs at her, “It’s not poisoned if that’s what you’re thinking. I need you alive if I want you to be a mage, but if you want to starve by all means don't eat it.” Kevin states in a tone of subtle amusement. 

Gwen finally looks up and makes eye contact with Kevin, with his multiple eyes. Another thing that seems to be unmatched on him. His whole body is and Gwen is still uncertain as to why. It's clear that she can label distinct alien species within his makeup. She just can't put together how he became this way.

She suddenly registers what he said to her, “I’m sorry did you say mage?” Gwen questions him. 

Kevin sighs and takes a deep breath. Gwen can tell he’s already annoyed with her. From either her questions or her demeanor. She can’t find it in her to care though. She can tell he is holding back his irritation by how he’s clenching his jaw tightly.

“Yes. You are going to be my mage. You’ll need to be trained. You can barely handle doing more than simple spells it seems.” 

Gwen puffs her cheeks in annoyance now. “You know that was a very advanced explosion spell! Anyone would be exhausted after that.” She says in a clipped tone. 

“It’s advanced for someone who barely understands mana. You need a teacher, don’t get me wrong, for a human that was impressive.” Kevin says, leaning against the wall and crossing his many arms over his chest. 

“Who do you think you are? You’ve entrapped my brother and now I’ve bargained my life for his. Who even are you?” Gwen demands feeling frustrated by the criticism as well as embarrassed about this whole situation. 

“I’m the prince of this kingdom sweetheart,” he responds with his face twisting into a feral smirk with too many teeth, “and _you_ will be my new mage. The Plumbers need somebody who can use mana like you. You just need to be taught.” He pushes himself off the wall and struts towards the door. 

“I thought the prince died. Ten years ago, during the coronation-” Gwen beings but gets cut off by Kevin. 

“I suggest you eat that before it gets cold and rest.” He opens the door and looks over at her over his shoulder, his light tone dropping, “I also wouldn’t think about running away. You’ve seen Argit’s quills work first hand. He’ll be guarding your room. If you do manage to get by him, I won’t be as forgiving.” 

The vague threat hangs in the air and Gwen’s face twists into anger. 

Kevin leaves and shuts the door behind him. She can hear his voice muffled talking to Argit. 

She throws one of the many pillows at the closed door and groans in frustration. 

“What a foul man!” She curls in on herself on the bed, clutching her legs to her chest. 

“He can’t be the prince he died...” Gwen mumbles to herself, resting her forehead on her knees. “Unless the Plumbers lied.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having a lot of fun writing this. I'm really excited that Gwen and Kevin have finally met! It's only going to get really wild from here.


	9. The Plumbers Fair

The kingdom’s capital city is a beautiful mix of many cultures. Alien and human alike. While surrounding towns can vary in their population and seem much more rural, the city’s population reflects the best parts of the kingdom. 

The city is vibrant with a mixture of alien technologies being gifted from different planets and the simplicity of human technology. The city grows almost every year with new buildings that can house the ever-growing population. The city now has sky bridges that connect many local housing complexes to each other and store fronts, to avoid the large industrial public transportation on the city's main streets. Steam powered trams run on their tracks through the heaviest streets, picking up aliens and humans alike. Smaller personally owned vehicles share the streets with the trams, from scooters to small town cars crowded next to one another. Then there are the aliens who fly above the city, coming and gliding in their own traffic patterns. It was all such a beautiful coexistence of cultures, and the food shouldn’t be passed on either. 

At least that’s how Ben Tennyson always saw it. The city was his home and he’s experienced very little outside of it. According to his Grandpa, that wasn’t a good thing. 

Speaking of his Grandpa Max, it seems Ben’s lost him, again. 

Ben can see his partner Rook Blonko though, a Revonnahgander whose height and bright blue color makes him easier for Ben to find amongst the many different humans and aliens Ben is surrounded by at the moment. 

“Rook!” Ben waves at his partner and walks over to him, squeezing past people. 

Rook moves his head until he finds the source of the sound. He smiles down at his partner, his feline ears perking up. 

“Ben! Have you seen some of the presenters today? I really think we will find some new recruits!” Rook says excitedly once Ben meets him. 

This Engineer Fair was the most talked about event in a while. People from all over the kingdom, aliens and humans, were coming to present their work. Almost all Plumbers who weren’t on a call were pulled in to help assess the fair. Ben wasn’t too invested at all. He would have much rather stayed behind with Kevin and snoop through his coworker's belongings. Ben, being the wielder of the Omnitrix, made his appearance vital. Much to his annoyance. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they’ve all been great.” Ben waves a hand dismissively at Rook. “Have you seen Grandpa Max anywhere? I lost him at some point in last three hours.” Ben asks. 

Rook holds his chin in his hand and ponders, “I do not think I have seen Magister Tennyson since this morning Ben. He has been watching almost all of the presenters though, we should look there.” 

Rook grabs hold of Ben’s hand and drags him through the crowd. 

Many people in the city were at the fair to watch the presenters as well. Some scouting for new engineers themselves if they weren’t recruited by the Plumbers and some just to have an event to look at throughout the past two weeks. 

It was coming to an end soon, with today being the last day of the whole event. Ben couldn’t be happier. He just wanted to go back home to the castle and ask Kevin what he had found. 

Ben groans as Rook drags him, “I’m so over seeing all these inventors and engineers Rook! They’re all the same with little differences.” 

Rook looks curiously at Ben as he leads them to their destination, “What do you mean? There have been many different items that have been displayed just this week! Did you see the one who redesigned the Plumber uniforms to be more resilient to heat and below zero temperatures! It was amazing and more fashionable.” Rook smiles thinking about that one in particular. 

“Yeeaaaaah,” Ben draws out rolling his eyes, “I’m sure that’s great Rook. I just really need to find Grandpa right now.” 

“Ben I do not think Magister Tennyson would like to hear you complain again about this fair. It is almost over anyway.” Rook states rather irritated. 

Ben huffs out, “It’s not about that Rook!” Ben looks around him quickly before pulling Rook down to whisper to him, “I just got a call from Pierce’s team.” 

Rook shares a concerned look with Ben, “What did they find?” He asks. 

“They found another one of our vehicles, ya know, the decoy we sent out with the fake cargo.” Ben continues in a hushed tone. Rook has his full attention. “It was looted, totally empty and the drivers were knocked out and tied up.” 

Rook nods to him in understanding before trying to maneuver through the sea of people and aliens alike. 

“Which teams did we notify of that truck Ben?” Rook asks casually. 

“It wasn’t many, but that’s why I need to find Grandpa. He knows exactly what teams knew.” Ben replies in a serious tone. 

“Magister Tennyson should be in the main atrium. That is where all of the largest presenters are displaying.” Rook replies as he sees the building he was referring to just ahead of them. “It is this way Ben.” 

“Thanks Rook.” Ben grins at his partner as the two find their way into the main atrium of the fair. 

The two Plumbers enter the building and are once again surrounded by a large crowd. Ben sighs but does his best to navigate around. He’s unfortunately shorter than average and can’t see much further than a few heads in front of him. He can barely see the displays from the door. 

Ben groans in frustration before his eyes land on his Omnitrix. He knows he shouldn’t be using it unless he needs to, but finding Grandpa seems to be important right now. 

Ben flicks the Omnitrix on his watch and searches until he finds the right alien. He finds exactly who he’s looking for and slaps his hand down. 

A bright light engulfs Ben and his bones and flesh twist and turns to change his DNA into that of an Aerophibian, who Ben has so named Jetray. 

He widens his arms and pushes the air under his wings and lifts above the crowd easily. Once up he searches for the signs of his grandpa from the obnoxious red and orange floral print he loves to wear. 

Rook is looking up at Ben in disappointment but also embarrassment. Ben has suddenly drawn all the attention to himself in the atrium and a crowd is starting to form to look at the famous Ben Tennyson, royal knight of the kingdom, Plumber, and the owner of the Omnitrix. 

“Magister Tennyson is not going to like this Ben!” Rook yells up at his partner as he is getting pushed by the crowd. “You were supposed to lay low remember?” 

“Grandpa will be fine! This is important-Oh! I see him!” Ben shoots down into the crowd to land in front of his Grandpa Max who is startled, but only for a second. 

Ben releases his form and returns to his human self, looking at his Grandpa. 

“Ben!” Max hisses at his grandson, now seeing the mass of people try to push towards them. “What did I say about using the Omnitrix so casually?” He pushes Ben and starts directing them into a private room. The crowd seems far too interested in Ben and Max has no time for this today. He warned Ben about being too flashy in public. 

Rook makes his way towards the two Tennyson’s and follows them into a side room. 

“Ben I can’t believe you, I thought we discussed how to use the Omnitrix in public-” Max beings reprimanding. 

“Grandpa I had to! Who knows how long it would have taken for me to find you? Anyway, this is important! Pierce’s team found one of our trucks.” Ben rushes out his explanation, cutting off his Grandpa. 

Max looks over to Rook for confirmation and the blue feline nods back to him, “It is true.” 

Ben fishes for his Plumbers badge and pulls it out to show Max. He taps one of the buttons and it starts playing back the message Pierce left for Ben on his communicator. 

Pierce’s voice cuts through the silence repeating the information Ben told Rook previously. 

Max nods in understanding, “So it was the decoy we sent out. He’s sure?” Max asks. 

“Yes, I’m sure. It was the only one we sent out with human drivers who weren’t registered Plumbers. They only knocked them out and tied them up. Besides that, they remained untouched.” Ben states. 

Max nods his head in understanding. “I only gave the information to that truck to Pierce’s team.” He responds quietly. 

Ben and Rook look at each other in confusion. “That does not make any sense, why would Pierce be the mole?” Rook asks. 

“Maybe it’s not Pierce, but someone on his team.” Ben guesses. 

“His team is made up of the most trusted Plumbers descendants. None of them would betray the kingdom like this. Stealing technology and kidnapping aliens. All of them are aliens.” Rook states, holding his chin in confusion. 

Max nods his head in agreement. It didn’t make sense at all. Besides Ben and Rook, Pierce was the person he trusted the most. Some things weren’t adding up. 

“I’ll talk to Pierce when we get back tomorrow. We’ll figure this out. Right now, we need to get back out there and judge the last few displays.” Max says, placing his hands on both Rook and Ben’s shoulders. 

The two young men agree and walk out with Max back into the atrium. The crowded sea of people had yet to let up and Ben began itching to get out. 

Max’s grip tightened onto Ben’s shoulder, making him shriek. 

“Grandpa!” Ben’s head whips around to look at Max. 

“I know that look Ben, you aren’t going anywhere. I’ve barely seen you look at or listen to any of the presenters. You are staying and helping.” Max states casually, his grip not letting up. 

Rook snickers as Ben mumbles in frustration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got to write for Ben, Max, and Rook and honestly I'm honestly reliving my love for this series and how fun I found all of the characters.


	10. Collision

Kevin is pacing up and down his private study waiting for Ben and Max to return. He needs to know what they’ve found out because there was no information left behind in the castle. Kevin’s not surprised by that fact, but it frustrates him nonetheless. 

Then there is the matter of Gwen on top of it and that sends him spiraling into a new set of issues. The biggest one being what is he going to say to Max.

Kevin shrugs to himself dismissively though, he was always pretty good at thinking on his feet, he’ll just play it by ear. It's how he got Argit pardoned and that seems to be working out... kind of. 

Maybe not his best example, but it’s all he’s got. 

Gwen’s sitting in his study as well, Argit has been moved to watch the front gates now. One because of the few unwanted visitors in the past week and two, to watch for the Plumbers arrival. 

She’s sitting in the large chair he has in a corner next to the window reading quietly and has made very little acknowledgement that he’s even there. She turns the page and looks up to check out the window. 

It’s refreshing but also frustrating to him. He thinks she’s ignoring him on purpose, not out of fear but irritation. Which is laughable. This small girl is willfully ignoring him because he’s pissed her off. His large form takes up a large amount of space in this room. His pacing also makes more noise than average with his Tetramand feet, and she’s only sighed about a passage she read. 

If anything, she kind of reminds him of Ben. Not the Ben he knew when he was eleven though, Ben as he is now. When they were kids Kevin and Ben butted their heads about almost everything. Everything had to be a competition too. Ben usually won because of Kevin’s short fuse. 

Sometime around their teens, after Kevin returned, Ben seemed to stop treating Kevin like an ocean divided them. Or maybe it was Kevin who always thought that. It was almost as if nothing had changed between them, but that wasn’t true, everything had changed. Major trust had been lost, but Ben just chose to keep treating Kevin like they were best friends who hadn’t seen one another in a few years. Instead of whatever Kevin was. 

She’s like Ben, that’s what Kevin decides. She doesn’t find his presence intimidating or friendly, she’s indifferent to it. Or she has the best poker face. 

“You’ve been staring at me for a while now. Do you have something you want to say to me?” She asks him as she flips another page in her book. 

Kevin realizes his mistake and turns his head sharply away from her. “Not so much a question, just making an assessment.” Kevin mutters and continues his pacing. 

“What could you possible assess about me from watching me read a book?” Gwen asks, giving Kevin her full attention now. Closing her book and facing him, she raises her brow at him, ready to combat whatever he says to her. 

Kevin opens his mouth to retaliate against her, but his response is quickly forgotten as Argit throws open the door. 

“They’re all coming in now, good ol Max looks like he’s got something to talk to you about. I told them you were here.” Argit sates dryly looking indifferent about the situation. 

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going back to my normal routine so don’t come asking me for nothin’.” Argit announces turning back around. 

“Oh yes your routine of finding my families valuables to see what they sell for. Or your routine of sleeping on every surface in the castle?” Kevin states sarcastically. 

“Ya know Kev you should worry more about what your story is for that girl than about what I do in my free time.” Argit gives a toothy animalistic grin and raised brows at Kevin. 

Kevin’s silence and glare are enough of an answer for Argit to send him scampering away. 

Kevin sees Gwen’s face scrunching in confusion at what is going on, but she doesn’t have time to question it. 

Ben comes into the room and almost trips over Argit as he does. 

“Hey, watch it!” Ben shouts behind him. He readjusts himself before casually walking into the room. 

“So, Kevin how was it here? I’m sure it was insanely boring without my presence but tell me about it anyway.” Ben states in a joking tone and grins. 

“I am sure Kevin had a wonderfully _peaceful_ time without you Ben.” Rook interjects and he comes right behind Ben with Max following. 

Ben turns to face Rook and crosses his arms, “Please Rook, you know having me around keeps its fresh and lively. I mean when was the last time you or Kevin did anything interesting without me?” 

“Tennyson...” Kevin warns his irritation growing quickly after Ben only being in the room for two point five seconds. 

Max, who has been quiet during this whole exchange, suddenly speaks up looking past Kevin. 

“Kevin, who is that?” Max asks his face already falling into a frown as he stares at Gwen. 

Kevin’s many eyes widen for a second, forgetting that Gwen was even in the room. He turns his head to face her, and her eyes are big, and her mouth is wired shut. She looks to him quickly before looking back at the other three men in the room. 

“She’s the new Mage I hired.” Kevin quickly spits out. His regret is immediate when everyone’s gaze falls on him in confusion. 

Ben laughs at this, “You? Hire someone? What did you do, kidnap her?” Ben keeps laughing while Rook slams his elbow into Ben’s side. 

No one notices Gwen’s face pale for a second but Kevin. 

Kevin pauses and glares at Ben before continuing, all attention is on him. 

“No Tennyson, for your information she broke into the castle while you lot were gone.” The room grows quite as they all look at Gwen, who absolutely does not look like a girl who participates in criminal activity. She looks more like a poster advertising a librarian. 

Kevin suddenly knows what he’s going to say. 

“She broke in to look for the library. She thought the building was abandoned and was looking for any magical texts or artifacts the royal library might have.” Kevin claims to his companions. 

“Argit found her, and I offered her the option of imprisonment or to stay and learn from what is in our library,” He looks back from Gwen to Max, “provided with a teacher of course.” Kevin finishes his story and is quite proud of how easily this story came together. 

It was only half a lie. 

Max steps forward towards Gwen and asks her to stand up. She shoots up out of her seat and is shaking slightly. 

Kevin could almost laugh at how nervous she is. Here before Max Tennyson, a Magister for the Plumbers, her legs wobble slightly. She never flinched once at Kevin and his amalgamation of a body. 

Max looks over Gwen closely and comes to a conclusion for himself. 

“What’s your name kiddo?” Max asks her. 

“Gwendolyn,” her voice comes out a little too high from her nerves, “but I go by Gwen.” she finishes her face goes a little pink from what Kevin can only assume is embarrassment. Her eyes never leave Max’s though. 

Max takes her out of the room to talk to her privately. As soon as the door closes behind him Ben and Rook are on top of Kevin. 

“She broke in?” Ben hisses in disbelief at Kevin. 

Rook places his hand on Ben’s shoulder, “Well we were all gone Ben. We left Kevin alone.” He adds to the conversation. 

Ben whirls around to look at Rook like he was crazy. 

“Rook, I don’t mean to sound rude here but,” Ben throws his arms out to point at Kevin, “do you see how large Kevin is? How many aliens is he made up of? I think it was fair that we could leave him alone!” 

Kevin’s face starts to twitch in irritation, “Ben-” 

Kevin doesn’t even get to finish a warning, Ben is on a roll, “No seriously Kev! I mean look at you, you are massive! How did that tiny girl break in and not only get past you, but make a big enough impression for you to offer her a job!” Ben is trying to keep his voice down so the two people behind the door don’t hear him, but he’s doing a horrible job at it. 

Rook breaks in right after him, “Now Ben I do not think that is fair. This castle is large with many entrances. We should have left Kevin with at least a few guards.” 

Ben and Rook turn to face Kevin, he can feel himself making a face at what they’re saying. 

“Don’t tell me she came in through the front gates Kevin...” Ben says exasperated. 

“Guys!” Kevin growls at the two. “That doesn’t matter right now. What _does_ matter is she is human and can control mana...freely.” 

Ben and Rook share a look with each other before addressing Kevin. 

Ben’s face falls slightly, “Kevin do you think,” he pauses looking to Rook for some backup. Rook offers no such comfort for what Ben is about to say. “do you think she can fix-” Ben doesn’t finish before Kevin interrupts. 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Kevin raises his Petrosapien arm and scratches his head, avoiding how his friends are looking at him. 

“I have to try though.” He mutters quietly. 

Kevin feels Ben’s fist hit his chest lightly, he looks down at him to see Ben grinning widely. 

“If you believe in her, then we’ll help. I trust you Kevin.” Ben states to his friend. 

Kevin almost smiles at him but brushes him off instead. 

“Thanks, I mean it Tennyson.” Kevin mumbles, refusing to look at Ben or Rook in their eyes. 

Before Ben or Rook can say anything else to Kevin, Max and Gwen come back into the room. 

“I’m going to make some calls to see if I can find her a teacher. Until then, she doesn’t leave any of our sights.” Max says sternly, his hand is resting on Gwen’s upper back. Kevin notices she doesn’t look like she wants to puke anymore. 

“Someone has to be in charge of her until then.” Max continues. The three younger men in the room all look at each other fearfully. 

“Ben,” Max says looking at his grandson. 

Before Ben can open his mouth to complain Max continues, “After that stunt yesterday, I think it’s only fair that you should watch her. Make sure she has an escort to wherever she goes and don’t leave her alone with anyone else but us until I can call in that favor. Think you can do that?” 

Ben groans but agrees anyway. “I got it.” Ben waves his hand at Gwen. “Come on, I might as well introduce you to some of the others, so you’re not a stranger.” Ben holds the door open for Gwen to follow him. 

Once Ben leaves the room Max turns to Kevin. 

“We got some clues on who the mole is.” Max tells him. 

Kevin’s face falls. He almost forgot about that all together since Gwen appeared. 

“It’s not good news is it?” Kevin asks. 

Max crosses his arms and shakes his head no. 

Kevin sighs and moves over to one of his overly large chairs and sits down. He won’t be leaving his study for a while now. Max and Rook pull up two more chairs to fill him in on the new intel. Kevin almost wishes he had been chosen instead of Ben to take care of Gwen right now, at least then he wouldn’t be trapped in this room for the next few hours. 

Kevin pushes that thought aside. He knows better than thinking that right now. This is his kingdom. It’s the one thing he is responsible for, what he knows he should live up to. 

He adjusts himself listening intently to Max and Rook, giving them his undivided attention. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two groups have finally collided. It felt really nice to finally see almost all of them together in one scene. Side note, I almost didn't put Rook in this story, when I first thought about it I had not watched Omniverse yet. I recently watched it back in the summer of the pandemic and I feel in love with his character. I can't imagine not writing him in it now.


	11. The Royal Family

The Plumbers, Gwen realizes, do much more than she ever thought. She kind of thought they were mainly humans who just reinforced the kingdoms laws. 

She’s couldn't be more wrong if she tried. She blames the sheltered life she's lived most of her life for not knowing this information. Some part of her feels like what is in here though isn't the most public knowledge either.

She follows Ben through a large open room, Plumbers are rushing around her trying to get back into the grove of their jobs. 

The Plumbers aren't all humans either she realizes. A variety of aliens are in this room working alongside humans. She can identify some of the species but not all of them. She's buzzing with excitement at meeting all these people. She thinks about all the life experiences they've had that are so different from hers. She doesn't know who she wants to meet or talk to first.

The room they’re in has obviously been repurposed from it's original use. Gwen thinks maybe it was a ball room from the high ceilings and many intricate and ornate tapestries that line the walls. There is also the massive multipaned windows that showcase the courtyard as well. Desks litter the whole room with various things thrown onto them. Paperwork, weapons, and various materials Gwen has never seen. 

She thinks Ken would have loved this, all the new materials and working with so many different minds. Her face falls thinking about her brother. She hopes he’s okay. Kevin didn’t really mention what he had done with her brother, just that he was safe and in the city. 

She knows Ken can take care of himself; he is the oldest. She’s just lucky Kevin didn’t arrest or criminalize either of them. That thought doesn’t sit well with her. Ken was so impulsive and never thought anything through, it wasn’t surprising to her that he attacked Kevin. If he saw what was happening here, he would probably think Kevin was holding the Plumbers captive. 

It’s definitely better that Ken’s not here, she finally decides. 

“Gwen are you listening?” Ben’s hand waves in front of her face. 

Gwen looks at him and realizes she hadn’t been following him and was just standing on the outskirts of the room staring. 

“Sorry, I was just thinking how much I never knew about the Plumbers.” she replies with her smile tight. 

Ben looks over her once, seemingly not believing her, but he shrugs it off. 

“Yeah, there is a lot we don’t let the public in on.” Ben begins looking around the shared office space. 

“Like Kevin?” Gwen replies side glancing at Ben knowingly.

“That’s,” he pauses to think, his hand goes up and pushes his hair back, “That’s a _special_ case.” Ben finally settles on. 

“Is he really the prince?” she asks. “Because everyone thinks he’s dead.” 

Ben’s face twists, he doesn’t reply immediately. “Yes, he is, but again that’s-” 

“Complicated?” Gwen finishes with a sigh. 

Ben nods in agreement. 

“It’s been complicated for a while now; I shouldn’t be telling you this though. Kevin will tell you when he’s ready.” Ben settles closing the conversation. 

She scoffs at that idea. Kevin will never let her know about him. She is insanely curious to know about what is going on though. 

Before the two can continue the tour a new voice chimes in. 

“Ben! There you are,” a man around their age comes up to Ben, he's in a Plumbers uniform and looks human for the most part, his blonde hair is strangely immaculate. “Pierce wanted me to give you the progress update on the truck we found.” He says smoothly and hands over a few forms to Ben. 

“Thanks, Grandpa will want to look at this.” Ben folds the papers and puts them away in his pockets. 

The new person makes eye contact with Gwen and her face flushes slightly. He’s very handsome too, she notes. 

“Who is this, a new recruit? I didn’t think we hired anyone yet.” He asks, tilting his head slightly. 

“Oh, this is Gwen! Kevin hired her actually.” Ben remarks introducing them. 

“Gwen this is Mike Morningstar, he’s a part of the special task force team and runs most of our intel on new leads.” 

Mike steps forward holding his hand out for Gwen to shake, “Oh please he’s being too modest, I’m just a very persuasive person when I need to be.” Mike chuckles lightly. When their hands meet, a small spark comes from the contact. 

Mike’s face lights up as he looks up at Gwen, “You have powers too? That’s never happened before with another human?” he asks excitedly. 

“Uhm, I guess? It’s more like mana manipulation.” Gwen responds with a small smile on her face. 

“So, what position did our prince hire you for?” Mike asks and looks over to Ben, “I didn’t know Kevin was hiring for any positions.” 

Gwen opens her mouth to respond but Ben cuts her off, “Sorry Morningstar, but that’s confidential right now. You understand right?” Ben rushes out and pushes Gwen forward. 

“I have to continue showing Gwen around, but thanks for the paperwork! I’ll make sure Grandpa gets it!” Ben waves back. 

Gwen turns and gives Ben a puzzled look. 

“That was rude.” She moves aside out of Ben’s reach and falls into step next to him. 

“Sorry, I just didn’t want him knowing why Kevin hired you. There’s some information that not everyone here needs to know right now.” Ben states gesturing for her to follow him into another room. 

“So, you’re keeping secrets amongst yourselves too? Doesn’t that seem counterproductive?” she remarks dryly. 

Ben rolls his eyes at her before responding, “We have a mole right now. And his team is our biggest lead on who it is. I don’t need him digging for information about Kevin right now.” Ben’s voice is light, but the tone isn’t. 

“The only people who need to know about you are Kevin, Grandpa Max, Rook, and probably Argit.” Ben’s face scrunches up at the last name in distaste, “Argit knowing is already pushing how many people should know why or how you’re here.” 

Gwen nods in response. “What is the mole doing?” she asks. 

“Well,” Ben looks around to make sure they’re alone in the hall. “right now, they’re stealing our Plumber issued weapons and technology and as far as we know...” Ben’s face scrunches up in annoyance, “We think they are also kidnapping aliens and trapping them back in Undertown.” he says with distain. 

“What?” Gwen’s in shock by that information. “Isn’t that the exact opposite of-” 

“The morals and values our kingdom is built on?” He states in a flat tone. 

“We thought it was a few select humans just getting away with some hate crimes." he pauses and makes a face at that statement too. "Since the public thinks all the royal family is dead the peace between humans and aliens has been dwindling significantly over the past decade.” 

“But that’s not true, Kevin’s here.” she states. 

Ben grabs Gwen and leads her down a different hall, back towards the living quarters her room resides in. 

“Gwen did you grow up in a town that was intermingled? Or did you come from a human village?” Ben asks her. 

Gwen’s face falls thinking about her small village. It was only humans; it was all she really knew. She also knew that she never felt like it was enough for her. She thinks that maybe when she was very little, she couldn’t have been more than three or four, that her family lived in a much bigger city. 

She can’t remember that far back. She knows her family moved back out towards the edge of the kingdom's horizon, where mainly human villagers were. Her parents never really discussed why they moved. Ken was little too, but his memory was much better than hers. 

He didn’t like talking about anything that involved remembering their parents. Gwen’s closest interactions to aliens before this were her studies from the various books Mr. Baumann carried for her. 

“I came from a human village,” she responds to Ben, “but I don’t see where you’re going with this.” 

Ben finally drags Gwen to the end of one of the larger halls, and against the wall is one of those large royal family portraits. 

The portrait shows two adults, with midnight black hair. The man on the left stands tall and seems very proud, he looks mostly human in appearance, but there are some small, rounded, horns on his forehead. His face is set with a strong jaw and a small smirk lays on his face. His face is kind in the same way Mr. Baumann's is, Gwen thinks. Just a much younger version. 

The woman on the right stands next to him, her hand disappears behind the man’s back. She looks to be completely human, with no features like the man next to her. Her hair lays in a braid disappearing behind her back. A wide smile graces her face, smile lines are on the outer corner of her eyes. Her face is much softer than the man next to her. Her other hand lands softly on the shoulder of a small boy who is in front. 

He can’t be more than ten and his smile is as wide as his mothers. His hair just as black and brushes against the top of his shoulders. He holds himself tall, as if trying to imitate his father's stance. 

They all look to be indescribably happy. 

“That’s the royal family.” Ben states. “The king was Osmosian, but he married a human woman. He truly believed in the blending of our divided societies. He dedicated his whole life to it.” 

“That’s Kevin.” Gwen says softly, staring at the portrait. Her eyes didn’t leave the small boy. 

“What happened Ben?” She turns to her partner now loaded with even more questions. 

“That’s for Kevin to tell you.” He replies smiling softly at Gwen. “Come on let’s go back to Kevin’s study.” Ben turns to lead them back the way they came. 

“I need to give these papers to Grandpa anyway.” 

Ben starts walking ahead without Gwen. She stalls a little too long behind him, staring at the family portrait in confusion. 


	12. Kevin and Gwen Spar

Gwen’s been in the castle for a little over a week now and she has a decent understanding of the men who have taken her in. 

Ben is the easiest to read. For every part of him that is ridiculous and a little annoying, he is just as equally compassionate, and Gwen gets along with him easily. It's almost easier than getting along with her own brother. Ben shares her interests, and she is more than intrigued by the Omnitrix. She’s heard about it in passing but seeing how Ben uses it, like it’s second nature to him, is amazing. She’d never tell him though; he clearly already has a big head. 

Max is a mixture of a few different things. He can be just as ridiculous and caring as his grandson, but the loyalty and discipline he has to the Plumbers is very admirable to her. He also can command a room in a way she sees Ben wishes he could. 

It makes sense that the two are close, but Gwen sees that Ben is much closer to his grandpa and talks very little about any other family. Gwen thinks Max and Ben are probably the only family they’ve known for a long time. She doesn’t pry though, it’s not her place. 

She can tell that they love each other unconditionally. When she sees them together it reminds her of Ken, and she feels lonely for a while. Max can almost feel her loneliness when it comes on, because he can single her out quickly to be with him. His kindness towards her makes her feel safe. It feels like home in an odd sense. 

Rook is the one who has surprised her the most. When Ben can’t tend to her, Rook usually replaces him. She’s learned so much about his culture and his home planet, Revonnah. She could listen to Rook go one about his family's farm and their own holidays. She asked him once, while they were watching Ben and Kevin spar, if he missed it. She saw him genuinely contemplate it for a few minutes. His eyes never stopped following Ben though as a small smile formed on his feline face. 

“Sometimes I do, but this feels just as much like a family.” He had turned toward Gwen, smiling brightly. “Do you not agree?” 

Gwen had hummed in response to him. She didn’t know how she felt about living here yet, just that she felt more like herself than she had in a long time. She almost felt free, even with the rotation of Ben and Rook watching her. 

Gwen thinks she gets along with Rook because they can sympathize with each other when they feel like a fish out of water. 

Gwen had to explain what that euphemism was to Rook when she told him as such. 

Kevin is the one that Gwen has spent the least amount of time with. The irony of that doesn’t escape her considering he was the one to bargain with her. 

She sees Kevin mostly when she must be in meetings with Ben or Rook, or when Ben and Kevin are sparring. 

Kevin’s situation doesn’t leave her mind either. She has no clue how he became this way, and Ben refuses to tell her. She needs to talk to Kevin about it, but he’s the one that seems to be either avoidant of her or indifferent. 

Maybe indifferent is the best word for it. 

Someone who isn’t indifferent toward her though is Mike Morningstar. The guy seems to be infatuated with her, which to be honest makes Gwen flustered a bit. 

She never really talked to a lot of men in her town, so to see one so openly chatting her up was new. 

She wasn’t upset about it in the least, well, except for the fact that Max was investigating his team. That kind of put a damper on the whole thing. 

Or that Ben, and sometimes even Rook, would pull her away from conversations with him. 

She didn’t know much about him besides that he was eager to talk about her powers. Powers that Gwen had been practicing since she came to the castle. Max was still trying to call in a favor from someone he knew to teach her. Until then, Gwen was more than content to practice from her tiny spell book and fling her mana attacks on sacks of sand on the practice grounds. 

She’s in the middle of getting ready for the day, half dressed, when Ben barges into her room without knocking. 

“Okay Gwen, we have a lot of free time on the schedule today so what if we-” Ben is cut off quickly by Gwen throwing a pillow at his head. 

“Ben get out! I’m not dressed you idiot! Learn to knock!” Gwen screeches at him and pushes him back out with a ray of her mana. 

“Sorry!” Ben screams back at the closed door. She hears his footsteps run away from her bedroom. 

Gwen wasn’t indecent but still in her sleeping gown. Her face was hot with embarrassment and she shuffled over to her door to lock it. She didn’t need him coming back in until she was done. 

When Gwen was finally done getting ready, she heard a hard knock on her door. 

She throws it open ready to yell at Ben again but comes face to face with Kevin instead. Well, more like face to chest, Kevin’s height towers over her. 

“Ben said something about switching duties for today, he was muttering something about a door under his breath, but I really couldn’t hear him.” Kevin says to her, probably noticing the confusion on her face. 

“And you agreed?” Gwen asks him still holding onto her open door. 

“He’s the one who offered to switch, and I didn’t really want to do inspections today anyway.” Kevin attempts to smirk at her, but it’s mangled. Gwen knows its sincere amusement at the expense of Ben. 

“Fair.” She finally replies, stepping forward and closing her door. 

“What’s on the schedule then for today?” Gwen asks. 

“I wanna see what you can do. We’re gonna spar on the practice grounds.” Kevin says making a motion for Gwen to follow him. 

Gwen’s face pales considerably. 

“Excuse me? That seems hardly fair!” She follows Kevin, her eyes racking up his form assessing the various aliens he’s made up of. 

“World’s not fair.” He gruffly replies eyeing her from the side. “Check me out all you want I’m not going to grow any new limbs.” 

Gwen huffs and rolls her eyes at him. “Kevin, I could barely explode the cell door in the dungeons without being exhausted. What makes you think I can stand a fight against you?” 

Kevin leads her outside to a mostly empty area. A few sacks of sand are thrown to the side alongside some hay bales for makeshift seats. 

Kevin turns to face Gwen, “Look, I’m not trying to kill ya. I’ve seen you practicing from that one book you have,” Kevin points to Gwen’s pockets knowing she carries her small blue book around. 

“You get better every day, but you need some real world experience.” He says and kicks one of the sandbags to the side. 

“You don’t need to be shooting at bags of sand, it won’t do you any good.” He moves to the other side of the field, putting plenty of space between them. 

“Also, who knows when that old man is going to find someone to cash in a favor, you need to be advancing already. We don’t have the rest of your life.” Kevin starts crouching like he does before he starts fighting Ben. 

Gwen glares at him from across the field, “Explain to me again why you need a mage? Why is this so important to you!” 

Kevin smiles in an almost feral way at her, “Beat me in a match and I’ll tell you.” 

Gwen’s interest is piqued now. She’ll play his game. Her curiosity is too much to bear at this point. 

Gwen’s hands start glowing blue with her mana and she stands much taller now, “Fine.” 

Kevin’s smile widens, baring his teeth at Gwen. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he really was trying to kill her. 

Keivn’s Pyronite arm lights up ready to throw fire towards Gwen, “I won’t go easy on you.” he says to her from across the field. 

“Good! It’ll feel even better when I do beat you!” Gwen yells out with as much bravado as she can find. 

Kevin actually laughs at that, his voice coming out in a gruff noise, “Okay then, this will be fun.” 

Kevin’s laughter cuts off as he lifts his enflamed arm up and shots at Gwen in quick succession. 

She shrieks quietly and uses her mana to put a shield up to block the hits. Kevin keeps shooting at her and gives a running start toward her. 

Gwen’s shield starts cracking after three of Kevin’s fire balls. She’s been put immediately on the defense and she can see Kevin’s form moving toward her. 

She turns slightly to start running and forms her mana into floating platforms for her to jump onto. She narrowly avoids Kevin’s arm swing at her. 

From above she bears herself a little easier, but not for long as Kevin uses his wings to bring him up to Gwen’s height. 

Kevin smirks at her as he flies to her eye level, “You can’t really run from someone with wings Gwen.” 

Gwen smiles back at Kevin, bringing her hands up, “Who said I was running?”

She brings her glowing hands down quickly and two solid blue mana rays fly from her hands and hit Kevin square in his face knocking him back. 

Gwen makes more steps to land gracefully back on the ground. She uses her powers to fling projectile mana balls towards Kevin sending him crashing towards the trees that are behind the practice area. 

Kevin’s back smacks into the trees and he falls down the trunk. Gwen smiles to herself and starts walking closer to where he fell. 

Before Gwen can get near, small crystal shards fly toward her. She pulls up a shield once more but as it cracks and shatters, she has to keep making more. 

Kevin’s form is coming closer to her, his Petrosapien arm pointed at her. 

“You’re gonna need more than a cheap shot to bring me down!” Kevin yells at her as he encroaches. 

Gwen keeps putting up shields but comes up with a new plan quickly. 

“How’s this for a cheap trick?” She responds to his mocking. 

She holds one of her hands behind her and says her first enchantment during the battle, “ _Tur-bo_ ” she says clearly. 

A twisting of the air pulls around them as a mini tornado forms from Gwen’s hand. It launches her into the air up above Kevin. 

Kevin moves to keep shooting crystal shards at her, but Gwen’s hand that caused the mini tornado moves towards him. It launches his projectiles back at him with full force. He brings his arms up to shield himself from it. 

Gwen’s spell fades and her gravity sends her spiraling toward Kevin. She puts her legs out to try and bounce herself off Kevin’s arm for her landing. 

Kevin opens his arms slightly to see her using the momentum of her fall to land on him. He smiles to himself and jerks his Petrosapien arm up to catch Gwen by her ankles. 

“Gotcha!” he exclaims. She shrieks as he throws Gwen down onto the ground. 

The impact cause her to lie on the ground unmoving. She tries to get her head to stop pounding and push herself back up, but she’s exhausted. Her body is aching from the impact but also from the intense use of her mana. Kevin moves into her swimming vision and she sees two of him. She closes her eyes tightly, a feeling of nausea now lingering in the mix of everything she’s feeling. 

“Yea I think we’re done here...” Kevin mutters to her. 

Gwen groans as a response to Kevin. 

Gwen feels her body moving, but not because of her. Kevin gently has picked her up in one of his many arms, which arm she isn’t sure. Her vision is still swimming behind her closed eyes. Just as quickly as he lifts her, he places her back down. 

She feels where she is and realizes Kevin has just moved her to a hay bale. 

“Just take a deep breath and count to fifty.” Kevin’s voice tells her. “It’ll help.” He adds. 

Gwen nods and listens to him. Her muscles are aching and she feels more drained than ever. 

Once she finally reaches fifty in her head she slowly opens her eyes. Kevin stands in front her and she only sees one of him this time. She feels significantly less nauseous, but her exhaustion is still there. 

“Ya know,” Kevin starts grabbing her attention, “that wasn’t too bad.” 

Gwen rolls her eyes. “You hit me once and I couldn’t get back up. I also don’t know if I could do another spell after that either.” Gwen holds her right hand up to inspect. She forces herself to try and manipulate some mana but her hand flickers blue for only a second before nothing comes back. She sighs. 

“Don’t beat yourself up, that was more of a challenge than I thought you would put up.” Kevin smirks at her. 

Gwen’s face brightens slightly but a frown falls quickly. 

“You wouldn’t happen to pity me and tell me anything about why you want a mage, would you?” she asks, cocking her head at him. 

Kevin laughs again at her, “I don’t _pity_ anybody.” he proclaims. 

Her head falls and she stares at her feet. She feels like a child for how sore of a loser she’s being right now. 

“But-” her head shoots back up to look at him, he’s avoiding her gaze, “we can keep sparring. If you beat me I’ll tell you anything you want.” 

Gwen’s cheeks puff in annoyance, “That’s not fair, I'll never knock you down. Ben barely can half the time and that’s with a multitude of aliens at his disposal!” 

Gwen feels bold and decides to bargain with him, Kevin seems like a man of deals after all. “How about anytime I land a good hit on you, one that really sends you flying, I get one invasively curious question?” 

Kevin ponders over this for about five minutes before he responds, “I’m going to regret this but fine. We spar once a week.” 

Gwen’s face lights up with a bright smile. “Great!” She exclaims. 

She pushes herself off the hay bale and starts walking back to the castle. 


	13. Mike Morningstar the Notorious Flirt

The first time Ben notices Mike Morningstar’s interest in Gwen, he brushes it off as a passing thing. Mike flirts with any pretty girl that comes within his massive orbit. It’s normal. 

Mike has shown interest in plenty of girls who have passed in and out of his life. The joke amongst his team was always who the new girl of the week was. Ben knows this because Manny can’t keep the team gossip to himself. 

Ben appreciates this because it keeps him ahead of Rook on placing bets about their coworkers. Ben can't help that he loves invading on his coworkers personal lives. 

So imagine the surprise on Ben’s face when he notices Mike’s continued advances to openly flirt with Gwen, right in front of Ben by the way. This past week alone Ben has clocked Mike saying the most textbook flowery compliments to Gwen at least ten times. Not to mention the small touches he's passing on Gwen's arms. 

Now Ben’s not interested in Gwen, she's like family at this point. It just feels weird to him how openly Mike flirts when Ben is less than a foot away. He acts like Ben isn’t there half the time. Which is hard considering Ben makes the most obnoxious fake barfing noise when Mike drags on for too long. 

Gwen calls him annoying and insanely immature; he calls it strategic use of ending a conversation when they have somewhere to be.

"How old are you again?" Gwen asked him the last time he did this. 

"I think twenty last time I checked." He smiled at her innocently. "Why do you ask?"

Gwen smacked him in his chest, hard, "Because I don't think men who are twenty should be making gagging noises when their friend is chatting up someone!" she hissed out at him. 

Ben smiled even more at her, "Actually if you must know, I take great pride in being this obnoxious at such an old age. Keeps me young. It's a gift really." 

Gwen rolled her eyes at him, "Then you need to ask for a gift exchange and take it back." she brushed by him fuming. If he squinted he could see the steam coming out of her ears. 

The second time Ben notices Mike’s interest is a few weeks after Ben introduced Gwen to him. Manny tells Ben about the new girl Mike is seeing. The news of a girlfriend isn’t anything unheard of, but when Rook comes back after his day with Gwen, he mentions how Mike interrupted their lunch with a human courting ritual. 

That just sends red flags up for Ben, but he doesn’t push the subject. He decides to wait. Gwen is probably just a passing interest for Mike, most girls were. 

Then Mike decides to start crashing most of Gwen’s lunches, either with Rook or Ben. Today happens to be the first lunch in a while that Ben, Rook, and Gwen can share, and Ben spots the blonde man from across the dining room waving at Gwen. 

She smiles politely at him, and as if that was an invitation, he makes his way over. 

Ben rolls his eyes and nudges Rook next to him. 

“Here comes Morningstar...again.” Ben mutters as he shoves food into his mouth. 

Gwen turns and sends a sharp look to Ben, “He’s just being friendly don’t be rude!” She whispers at him. 

“Yeah, he seems to be real _friendly_ as of late.” Ben replies in a laugh and looks at Rook beside him. 

Rook nods in agreement but doesn’t open his mouth. 

Ben feels Gwen swiftly kick his shins under the table. 

“Ow! Gwen! What was that for?” Ben screeches in pain. 

“Could you be any more immature!” She says stabbing her own meal with her fork. 

“What’s wrong with him showing a little interest in me?” 

Before Ben or Rook can open their mouths Mike glides over and sits in the open chair next to Gwen. 

“Hello lovely Gwen.” He smiles at her, lifts her hand to his lips and presses a light kiss on it. Gwen’s face flushes bright pink. 

Ben turns around to make a gagging motion towards Rook. His partner just frowns at him. 

“Ben, I do not think Gwen is wrong here.” Rook whispers over to him. 

The two look across the table to see Gwen talking animatedly about some new mana tricks she’s learned and the spell she’s recently trying out. Mike’s giving her his full attention, hanging off her every work. 

“He looks to be very interested in Gwen and their shared abilities. Why should she not be excited about it?” Rook says as he watches the two before him, completely oblivious to fact they are being talked about. 

Ben rolls his eyes at Rook, “Because I heard from Manny, he has a new girlfriend. If you lay with dogs don't be surprised when you get fleas.” Ben replied. He crosses his arms and eyes Mike like he was about to pounce on Gwen at any moment. 

Rook is quiet for a minute before he responds, “I do not think Mike has fleas Ben.” Rook mumbles quietly. 

Ben sighs, “Not what that expression means Rook.” 

Rook looks confused, “Why do humans have such weird sayings? What does laying with dogs mean?” 

Ben just shakes his head at Rook, “I’ll tell you later, but just know it isn’t a good thing.” 

Rook nods his head in agreement with Ben before the two continue to watch Gwen and Mike talk enthusiastically about something the two men missed during their own conversation. 

Ben stands and slams his hands on the table, interrupting the flow of conversation. 

“We have to go Gwen; we have a meeting with Kevin soon.” Ben says grabbing the plates off the table to discard them. 

Gwen gives Rook a questioning look and he just lifts his shoulders and shrugs in response. 

“He is right Gwen, we have a few things we need to get done today.” Rook replies. 

“Meetings with our big gruff prince? What could you possibly be discussing with Kevin?” 

Gwen’s face twists into one of discomfort and slight irritation. Mike can see that he’s messed up and starts peddling back. 

“Not that you aren’t important enough to meet with him,” he says, “just that you had a meeting with him yesterday didn’t you?” Mike flashes a bright smile at Gwen. 

“Not that it’s any concern to you Mike,” Gwen starts and moves to stand up. “but what I talk about with Kevin is private information.” 

Ben and Rook are standing and watching Gwen as she speaks, her face is stern and any joy from the previous conversation she had was gone. 

Gwen moves past Ben and Rook and starts leaving toward their next destination. Rook immediately moves to follow her, but Ben lingers slightly watching Mike’s baffled reaction. 

Ben sees Mike’s face contort in anger slightly and he just laughs. “I know your job is intel and to find information Morningstar but flirting with Gwen won’t get you closer to working directly with Kevin.” 

Mike’s head turns quickly to glower at Ben. 

“That’s not what I’m doing Tennyson-” Ben cuts him off and waves his hand at him dismissively. 

“Sure it’s not. I’ve seen you work for years Mike; I think I can tell when you’re up to something!” Ben continues to laugh as he leaves to follow his partners. 

Ben leaves behind a fuming and red in the face Mike Morningstar. He feels slightly better knowing that Gwen can see through him in moments like that. 

He decides to just observe Gwen and Mike from a distance and if he hears anything else, he’ll mention it to her. He trusts her to make smart choices on her own. 

Ben hasn’t known Gwen for longer than a month, but he thinks he has a decent understanding of her. Watching her constantly can do that to a person. He finds Gwen to be a friend first and someone he guards as his duty second. 

Kind of like Kevin. 

He smiles at that thought. He thinks Gwen has gotten close to all of them. She’s wormed her way into their group dynamic well. She’s even spending time with Kevin doing who knows what, once a week. Kevin hates spending time with anyone other than Ben or Rook. Ben's always on thin ice with Kevin's patience anyway. 

It feels nice, he decides as he walks into Kevin’s study and sees Rook, Kevin, Grandpa Max, and now Gwen are all looking at him, waiting. 

It feels like his weird little family is complete. 

“So, what are we talking about?” Ben smiles widely at the group and closes the study door behind him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going back to a semi-normal, work schedule starting Monday so I'm unsure if I'll be doing a chapter a day like I have been. This is definitely been a lot of fun though!


	14. Mana Master

Gwen feels like she’s buzzing. She shifts her weight and leans slightly onto Kevin’s desk with her hips. 

They were waiting for Max to tell them some news about finding Gwen a master mana user. She was in equal parts nervous and excited at the idea. 

Her nerves don’t explain the dull pain of a headache she has though, one that almost hasn’t gone away for a few days. She moves her hand to add pressure to her temple and massages it slightly. 

Kevin turns his head a bit to look at her, if he notices he doesn’t say anything. 

“I’ve finally found someone who can teach you Gwen.” Max says to her with a smile. 

Her demeanor changes quickly. She stands up straight now, paying full attention. She’s so excited she can’t stand it. The second she walked through the door and saw Max’s face she knew he had good news. 

“Really? Who is it?” Ben asks his grandfather. 

Gwen’s too busy bouncing on the balls of her feet to really care. She can finally practice with someone who is skilled and trained. Someone who can do the same things she can. 

“She’s someone I used to know very well. She’s an Anodite. She’s essentially made up of mana, she’s lived much longer than me and knows what she’s talking about.” Max replies. 

“How’d you get her to come? I thought Anodites like to keep to their own planet.” Kevin responds from his desk. 

“She owes me a favor from a long time ago. She hasn’t been to visit Earth in a few decades give or take anyway.” He responds casually, shrugging his shoulders. 

“She’s _made_ of mana. Like she can’t just control it, she is just a pure energy being?” Gwen asks excitedly, talking with her hands to emphasize. 

She’s fidgeting still. Shuffling her weight from foot to foot. 

“Pretty much. I meet her in my youth, she’s the only Anodite I’ve ever met, and you can feel her presence in a room.” Max responds smiling fondly to himself. 

Gwen’s face is starting to hurt from grinning so much. 

She’s finally going to learn more about magic than from her small spell book she bought off Mr. Baumann years ago. 

She’s finally going to learn and progress beyond what she’s taught herself. To be fair, she has made it farther than she ever would have at home. She’s taught herself a new spell almost every week. Her weekly training with Kevin has helped a lot too. 

She’s been manifesting her mana into more solid forms. When she’s practicing with Kevin, she can really experiment with what she can do. She hasn’t been able to knock him across the field like she did a couple weeks ago. She’s been trying to, but she keeps coming up short. 

There’s also the fact that she’s been getting exhausted easier as of late too. She hasn’t lasted longer than she did that first day. Kevin’s noticed it too. She doesn’t know why that is. She’s been practicing every day like she had during that first week. She’s learning new spells, but her energy is draining faster, not enduring like she thought it would. 

This information baffles her the most because none of the spells she’s learning are anywhere near as intense as that one explosion spell. 

The new spells she’s learned aren’t really for attacking either. More everyday use. Most of the spells in her spell book were for the everyday magic user. When she bought it, she didn’t think she would be applying magic for the use of battle. She just wanted to experiment with her book. She always felt this numb tingling in her hands that felt like static electricity. It just never went away. 

Until she tried a spell. It felt like all this energy that was inside had an outlet, it had somewhere to go, physically. She could produce and manifest something real and tangible. 

Maybe she’ll ask about it when her teacher comes. Surely, she must know. 

Max’s voice interrupts her train of thought, “She won’t be here for another week is the only thing. She’s coming from her home planet so it will take a while.” 

“That is still fantastic news.” Rook responds. 

“Yeah, Gwen needs to learn some more damaging spells. I can’t feel any of her attacks when we spar. ” Kevin says nonchalantly. 

The room goes quiet, and Gwen sends a fierce glare at him. 

“What?” he shrugs. 

“Real smooth Kev.” Ben says rolling his eyes at Kevin. 

“What? What did I say?” a small look of panic crosses Kevin’s face, “I mean, her mana manipulation is improving significantly but it’s just not as powerful as I expected.” he says to them. 

Gwen feels her face heating in embarrassment. 

She steps closer to Kevin, “Sorry I was self-taught in a human village! I didn’t think I’d be demanded to be a mage for an activity I was treating as a hobby.” Gwen huffs out in irritation. She places her hands on her hips and leans over his desk with a look of irritation. 

“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Kevin mimics her by standing and invading her space, “I’m just pointing out that you could be better!” Kevin growls out defensively at Gwen. 

“Okay let’s settle down.” Max says stepping between Gwen and Kevin’s desk, having to push her back a little. 

“She’s being too sensitive!” Kevin mumbles under his breath heated. 

Gwen turns on him quickly, “Sensitive? You are so thick headed; do you know that? That’s not the point!” 

Kevin scrunches his face, about to say even more, when Rook interrupts. 

“Kevin, I think Gwen is trying to say that is amazing she can do as much as she can. She is human after all. When was the last time you saw any human being do what she can do with mana?” 

Gwen throws one of her hands out, pointing to Rook. 

“Thank you!” she says exasperated. 

“Yeah, give her a little credit man. She’s pushed hard on her own.” Ben says. 

Kevin groans in response, “I don’t need all of you ganging up on me. I _know_ Gwen’s powerful! What I’m saying is she hasn’t made as much improvement as she should be. I mean she almost fainted last week when we sparred!” 

“I did not!” She shrieks at him. 

“Oh really?” Kevin’s face curls into a sick looking smile, “What would you call the last five minutes when you stumbled over your own feet and you said, ‘Sorry I got really dizzy out of nowhere.’ and then you proceeded to fall over.” he said smugly. 

Gwen rolled her eyes, “So what if I got a little dizzy! I’m fine.” She crossed her arms defensively. 

“Wait, you’ve been getting dizzy?” Max asks her, looking over her as if she’s about to fall now. 

Gwen gives Kevin a passing look of anger before responding, “Only recently. I’m fine really. I’m sure it’ll pass.” she says reassuringly. 

Max didn’t look convinced, “Why don’t you take a break from sparring until my friend comes. She can look you over.” 

Gwen and Kevin now share a groan of frustration. Gwen turns to him irritated. 

“I don’t see why you’re upset! You’re the reason I can’t fight.” Gwen sharply says to him. 

“It’s fine it’s only a week.” Kevin says, matching her tone. 

Gwen moves to exit the room and mumbles to herself about Kevin being unfair. Ben moves to follow her out. 

“Smooth dude, you really know how to talk to women.” Ben shakes his head in disapproval at Kevin. 

“Oh, and _you_ do?” Rook says laughing at Ben. 

Ben’s face goes red, “Shut up Rook.” he says before leaving to go with Gwen. 

Ben follows Gwen out and leads them to do a few inspections in the weapons armory. 

Gwen has her arms crossed across her body, shrinking in on herself, as she basically stomps alongside Ben. 

“You know, in a weird Kevin way, he was giving you a compliment.” 

Gwen rolls her eyes, “Yeah well he should really learn how to talk to people if that was a compliment.” she says in a displeased tone. 

Ben shrugs at that. He bumps his shoulder with Gwen’s to get her to look at him. 

“I’m serious. In Kevin’s weird, Kevin way, he likes you. He wouldn’t say he wants you to be better if he didn’t believe in you.” Ben smiles warmly at Gwen in reassurance. 

Gwen gives him a small smile in return and relaxes her posture. 

Gwen knows she’s being childish right now. She just wanted at least a little bit of credit for her improvement. She thought Kevin was seeing it too. Maybe he was, she couldn’t tell. He was still so hard for her to read. 

She wonders if she will ever be able to know what he’s thinking. 


	15. Star Shaped Marks Burn the Skin

Kevin is bored. In fact, most of his week has been dull. He’s also a little pent up with excess energy. He just needs to hit something really. He wants to hit himself. He can’t really do that though. 

Today he was supposed to meet with Gwen so they can work on her powers, but he kind of ruined that this week. 

Kevin shakes one of his Tetramand legs aggressively from where he sits as he thinks. 

He only feels partially bad about the spat the two had, but he’s concerned. She truly did almost collapse last week, and he can’t figure out why. Gwen’s use of her powers is getting exponentially better, so why was it exhausting her faster than their first fight? 

Kevin was thinking deeply about anything that could have changed since then, but he came up empty. 

He also doesn’t see Gwen for more than half the day or at all on some days. How could he know if anything was different? Gwen spends the majority of her days with Rook and Ben. Maybe they knew if anything has changed. He'll ask about that later.

Max sits in Kevin’s study with him, going through a couple reports on other aliens who have gone missing. His face is grim with his brow furrowed. 

Kevin knows that should be what he’s focusing on instead. He just so pent up with excess energy. 

Kevin grabs another file on his desk and starts skimming the information. 

Whoever the mole is knows that Max is onto them, because no technology or weapons have been stolen in the past month. Pierce’s team were the only lead they had and to be honest, none of them seemed like the type to betray the Plumbers, or at least betray Max. All of them had a clear and definite alibi too. If it is anyone from that group, they are not working alone. 

Kevin’s face twists in irritation before he catches something in one of the photos taken from the Plumbers Fair. 

He sees a familiar pattern, he can’t place it, but he knows it. It’s in the shape of a star imprinted on a girl's arm. It’s too grotesque to be a tattoo, it looks almost like she was branded. Kevin places that to the side and starts digging into other photos that were taken by the press. He starts flipping through multiple newspapers and magazines. He finds another photo, but a different girl, with the same branded mark. This girl looks more exhausted than the previous, the dark circles under her eyes are almost purple against her fair skin. 

Kevin sets that one with the previous photo. After looking through the stacks of news from the Plumbers Fair, Kevin finds about fifteen different photos. 

In all the photos these girls have the same weird star branded into their skin, and they all look as if they’re lost. They stand out in comparison to the crowd they’re in. The weirdest photo Kevin finds is near the end, it’s the same girl that he saw in the first photo, but she looks completely different. Her body is sagging as if she can’t move it too far, her eyes seemed to be sunk into her face, and she has more than one star branded across her arm. 

Kevin shoves the photos over to Max. 

“Look at these and tell me what you think.” Kevin gruffly says. 

He’s trying to place where he’s seen that imprint on the skin before, but he’s coming up with blanks. That only frustrates him more. 

Max’s face is serious as he looks through the photos, spotting the same similarities as Kevin does. 

“This is odd Kevin, but I don’t see a connection to the missing aliens.” Max replies as he sets the photos down. 

“I know it doesn’t, but I’ve seen that mark, recently. I just can’t place it.” Kevin murmurs as he stares holes in the photos, as if staring longer will give him the answers. 

Before Max can respond to tell Kevin he’s fixating on the wrong thing, Ben bursts into the room without knocking. 

“Tennyson do you even know how to knock?” Kevin sighs at his friend. 

“Yeah, I do, I learned that very quickly with Gwen.” Ben announced proudly. “I just don’t care about your privacy.” He smiles smugly at Kevin and walks over to see the papers on the table. 

“What are you guys looking through this time?” Ben asks seriously, the joking tone gone. 

“I was going through the most recent reports of missing aliens.” Max tells his grandson. “No new information that we don’t already know.” He sighs in exhaustion as he sets that file aside. 

Ben picks up one of the various photos on the table Kevin had put out. 

“What are these?” Ben asks, he picks up a few and scrunches his eyes at them. 

“I just found those, they’re all girls with the same weird imprint on them. It’s not a tattoo either. It’s like intended into their skin.” Kevin explains it by pointing them out to Ben. 

Ben’s face is scrunched as he looks at those marks intently. He’s concentrating as he shuffles between them. 

“Do you know that mark Tennyson?” Kevin asks, hoping that if Ben knows he can finally place it too. 

“Yeah... it’s not a good thing though.” Ben replied. Setting the photos down. 

Max is sitting up straighter now looking at Ben. 

“Where have you see that mark Ben?” he asks him. 

Ben crosses his arms over his chest, he is apprehensive and hesitant, before he looks at Kevin or Max in the eyes. 

“Gwen has one of those on her arms.” Ben says quietly. 

Kevin and Max look at each other in worry before concentrating on Ben again. 

“She’s been wearing her sleeves lower, she had to push it up yesterday when we were working on something in the weapons bay, and I saw it on her wrist. I asked her if she burned herself on something, but she just brushed me off quickly and covered it back up.” Ben explains to the two men in front of him. 

“That’s where I saw it then.” Kevin replies bitterly, a sour taste sits in his mouth. 

“Last week when we were training, I saw it for a split second, she’s been covering it for a while.” Kevin states with a look of contempt on his face. 

“So, what do we do?” Ben asks. 

Max sighs and rubs his face with his hand, “We need to talk to her. Ask her if she knows where it’s coming from. There’s clearly a connection. It’s just knowing what it is.” 

Kevin nods in agreement. 

Ben turns to leave the room, “She’s with Rook, I’ll grab them both.” 

After Ben leaves the air between Max and Kevin is dense. 

“Do you think she has anything to do with kidnappings and the stolen tech?” Kevin asks Max. 

Max is resting his head in hand, leaning onto the desk. He pauses to look up at Kevin. 

“Truthfully? No, not unless she’s a great actress. Those things were happening before she arrived.” 

Kevin’s shoulder loosens up, the tense muscles relaxing at hearing that. It was a reassurance he hadn’t let a stranger into their circle at the expense of their safety. 

“I think whoever it is, is targeting her. For whatever reason, Gwen’s the target.” Max says darkly watching the door waiting for Ben to come back. 

Kevin doesn’t know how to feel about that information. He knows that simmering anger from earlier is bubbling to the surface. It’s going to boil over if they don’t find out who it is. Kevin doesn’t feel any sympathy for this unknown person, he knows he is going to punch a hole in something soon if he doesn’t control himself. 

Kevin tries to control his breathing and take deep breaths. His body is aching for him to move. He hasn’t been set off like this in a while. He just hopes he can take his anger out on the right person this time and not the few who are here to help him. 

He watches the door like a hawk and waits for Ben to come back with Gwen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm pretty far into this story now and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. I hope you're enjoying it too. I don't know how long this will be, but I'm just seeing where it goes.


	16. Morningstar Becomes Darkstar

Out of all the people coming through Kevin’s study door he isn’t expecting Argit. In fact, that’s the last person he was expecting right now while Kevin’s anger boils under the surface and his paranoia flares up. 

Argit looks pretty unperturbed as he waltzes in. He doesn’t come too close to Kevin but lingers more so by the door. For a quick escape, Kevin realizes. 

Kevin takes a deep breath before he opens his mouth, trying not to yell, “Argit-” Kevin grits his teeth. “why are you here?” 

Argit scowls at Kevin, but knows better than to come closer, his body language is stiff, “Tennyson sent me to fetch you. Something about Red and that sparkly guy, Mike. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered to care. He said it was an emergency.”Argit replies. 

Kevin stands quickly and pushes towards to the door, “Where _are_ they Argit?” Kevin growls out as he closes in on the opossum like alien. 

“Down in the library! Geez! Can’t a guy do his job in peace?” Argit screams and scurries out of Kevin’s way. 

Kevin and Max both bolt towards the library. The two are peaked with curiosity and concern. 

Kevin has no idea why Gwen and Ben are in the library or what the hell they are doing with Mike Morningstar, but he doesn’t like it. 

Max calls with his Plumbers badge for Pierce’s team for back up and to be prepared for anything. 

Kevin and Max make it into the front section of the library to find Ben transformed into his Aerophibian form, Jetray. He was flung across the room back towards the front entrance where Kevin and Max were entering. He plowed into two bookshelves, taking them down. Rook was on the other side of the room aiming one of the Plumber issued guns to shoot at Mike Morningstar, who did not look like himself at all. Morningstar’s skin is covered in solid gold, and a faint glow surrounds him, continuously pulsating. He easily dodges around Rook’s shots as if he were playing a game. 

Max immediately rushes towards Ben to make sure he’s okay. 

Kevin looks around for Gwen and see her crumpled figure on the floor next to Morningstar, looking pale and drained like the women he saw in the photos. 

“What is wrong with you Morningstar?! What did you do to her?” Kevin turns on the former Plumber enraged. 

“Isn’t it obvious your royal blunder?” Mike replies. He aims an attack at Kevin, he dodges but just barely. 

“I deserve more. I always have. You brought this beautiful endless supply of energy on a silver platter to me! I’ll only ever need my lovely Gwen to feed me for the rest of my life!” Mike rejoices and uses his power to propel himself into the air. 

Ben flies up from his spot on the ground and shoots at Mike from above and hits him in the face. Ben shouts down to Kevin, “He’s been absorbing energy from her for weeks! That’s why she has those markings. He did it to the girls at the fair!” 

Rook shoots at Mike but he’s too fast for Rook. Ben only hit him because Mike was too busy monologuing to Kevin to notice Ben got back up. 

Kevin uses his Pyronite arm to shoot fire blasts at Mike, he hits him and sends him flying back against one of the bookshelves. 

“Max! What’s Morningstar’s power? You hired him!” Kevin yells back. 

“It’s energy absorption, he can use it through electricity, but I guess draining people has become his preference!” Max tries to rush towards Gwen’s form on the ground, but Mike beats him to her. 

Mike lifts Gwen and holds her to his body, as he hovers in the air away from the men below. 

“No one is taking her anywhere!” He screams out. “She’s mine! She’s almost a perfect energy being, she’ll never drain.” He laughs at them and clutches her closer. 

Kevin uses his wings to lift his large body into the air. 

“Kevin! You can’t blast him, or you’ll hit Gwen!” Ben screeches at him and glides in the air opposite him. 

“I know that Tennyson!” Kevin roars in frustration. 

Kevin thinks about how he can get Mike to just put Gwen aside. He eyes Ben near him and decides to flank Mike from two different sides. 

Before Kevin can even fly closer, Mike starts hitting him with his energy beams. It burns Kevin’s exposed flesh and pushes his massive form back toward the library’s opening. 

Kevin’s body lands on a large table, breaking it in half. 

“How do we get close to him?” Rook asks and he and Max continue to shoot at him, only hitting their mark a couple of times. Mike dances around them and mockingly laughs at their failure. 

“We have to distract him; he’ll keep feeding on her as long as he’s touching her!” Max replies to Rook. 

Kevin sits up and goes over to Max and Rook. Ben flies around Mike trying to get closer. 

“I’m going to try and flank both his sides with Ben, you both need to be underneath him so we can try to block him.” Kevin says and hurls himself up towards Ben. 

“Tennyson! Work opposite of me!” Kevin yells at Ben across from the room. 

“Try not to get hit!” Kevin adds. 

“Easier said than done Kev!” Ben shouts in reply. 

Kevin and Ben start hurling towards Mike, dodging a few of his energy beams. He can only aim at one of them at a time while he holds Gwen. 

Rook and Max surround him from the ground, their weapons pointed at shooting at Mike. 

Mike growls in frustration. He screams, “Enough!” He releases Gwen’s body as he shouts. He curls in on himself and sends out a pulsating wave of his energy to attack all of them. 

Rook standing beneath Morningstar just catches Gwen and hurries behind a bookshelf with her frail form. 

Mike’s attack sends Kevin and Ben down to the ground, with Ben’s Omnitrix tapping out and his body changing back to his human form. 

“You think you can beat me?” Morningstar asks heatedly from above the men on the floor. 

“You brought this poor girl here to save you didn’t you Kevin? How does it feel to know she will be the reason that your existence finally ends? To know she belongs to me?” He gloats from above and is charging himself up for another attack. 

Kevin tries to move, but the last attack knocked him and Ben down. He turns his head, and he can see Gwen sitting in Rook’s arms. She is starting to move, and all Kevin can think is to be thankful she isn’t dead. 

Rook tries to push Gwen back down, but she stumbles and pushes herself up. Mike catches her out of the corner of his sight. 

“Oh, you can still move. I’ll have to fix that my lovely Gwen, but after I deal with the prince here.” Morningstar says in mock surprise. 

“No, you won’t.” Gwen mumbles and moves in front of Mike. She holds her arms up with what little strength she has, she casts a spell, “ _Reverto_ _Meus Ops Mihi”_

Suddenly the air in the room changes and pushes and pulls everyone around. Gwen’s hands glow the bright blue of her mana and she projects her attack towards Mike Morningstar. 

Her mana wraps around him and squeezes tightly against him, Morningstar’s body starts convulsing in the air, his back arches uncomfortably back. 

Gwen’s body starts to glow blue all around her, her skin coming back to life and replenishing the color that had been lost. As her body returns to normal, he begins to lose the golden shine and starts to rot and decay before them. 

“What- what are you doing?” He cries out in agony. 

“I belong to no one!” She proclaims and continues to drain him of everything he took and then some. 

When she’s done, Gwen looks completely normal again. Mike’s body collapses to the ground and crumples. His skin is a decaying gray color, and he covers himself with his hands, as if he can protect himself still. 

“Tell them Morningstar, tell them what you told me! About how you’ve been stealing information and tech to sell to the Forever Knights!” Gwen yells at the sad lump of a man on the ground, keeping her distance. 

“Or should you tell them about how you’ve been using your position here to out multiple aliens to the Forever Knights? Honestly the list of illegal activity you monologued about is huge, I don’t know if we have time for it all.” 

In the middle of Gwen talking, Pierce’s team finally comes through the library. Pierce leads his team of three, Manny a Tetramand, Helen a Kinecelarn, and Alan a Pyronite. Kevin can’t blame them for what transpires quickly. 

The team walks in and sees Kevin, Ben, Rook, and Max all down and fairly beaten on the floor. Damage surrounding the library with shelves knocked down, tables broken, and books are flooding the floor. They see Gwen standing tall, her mana flowing around her, and Mike Morningstar on the ground in front of her, their teammate, crumpled in a pile. 

The four of them quickly get in formation and start attacking Gwen. 

Helen runs in circles around Gwen, blocking her from Morningstar. Helen spins Gwen out onto the floor, knocking her down. 

Before Kevin can get up to stop them, Manny is shooting his blaster at Gwen. She barely throws up a shield to block them. 

Pierce goes over to help Max up, who Kevin can hear telling Pierce to stop his team, Gwen isn’t who he called them in for. 

Kevin hurls himself up and grabs Manny’s wrist to stop him from shooting. 

Alan is over next to Ben talking quietly to him. 

“Stop!” Kevin growls out at Pierce’s team. “She’s not who you should be attacking!” His voice is deep and authoritative. 

“She just whipped the floor with ya! What do you mean, stop?” Manny demands but doesn’t continue to shoot. 

Helen is now over next to Rook and helping him stand and looks over at Kevin and Manny in confusion. 

“What’s going on? Magister Tennyson called for backup?” Helen asks. 

Gwen puts down her shields and looks at the new group who has crashed in. Kevin can see the panic on her face. 

“We called for backup because Gwen was being attacked.” Ben grunts and he leans on Alan for support. 

“Who was attacking her? What’s going on?” Alan replies just as confused as everyone else. 

“Morningstar was playing all of us. He was the informant who was leaking all our information. He was taking Gwen’s mana and using it as an unlimited supply to source his own powers.” Rook responds to the group. 

They all turn to look at Morningstar’s form curled on the ground but find no one there. 

All of them are on high alert. 

“Spread out and look for him! He can’t escape. If he does, who knows what will happen. Everyone keeps their badges on their person. He shouldn’t be able to hurt any of us, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’ll inform everyone in the building.” Max says and he grabs his own Plumbers badge to send out the communication. 

The groups split immediately to start looking. 

“Not you three, you need to stay here.” Max says referring Kevin, Gwen, and Ben. 

Kevin tenses up anxiously. He makes frantic eye contact with Ben who looks just as unsure as he does. 

The room clears out and leaves the four of them in the scattered disarray of the library. Gwen is shuffling her feet and looking down. She’s trying to make herself smaller, which next to Kevin isn’t hard. 

“What happened here?” Max says directing this question at Gwen and Ben. 

The two share a look and Gwen opens her mouth to respond, “Mike tried to corner me, and he asked if he could talk with me in private Rook thought we could have ‘privacy’ but not really, so we went to the library and honestly I don’t even know what happened, but he started draining my mana-” Gwen was rambling very quickly trying to explain what even happened. 

Ben interrupts her, “That’s when I was looking for them, and I called Rook. He told me what was going on and then I connected that Gwen’s only other contact was Morningstar and I realized he had to be the one who branded those girls-” 

Ben runs his mouth just as quickly as Gwen and she nods along in agreement and breaks off Ben’s sentence. 

“Yes, yes! Then he started monologuing, and basically told us his whole ordeal while he was draining me!” Gwen’s voice rises in excitement and Ben shrugs his shoulders in agreement. 

“Okay okay, calm down.” Max replies to them and raises his hands at them. 

“Gwen why don’t you let Kevin take you back to your room, and he can guard your room until we find out about Morningstar’s whereabouts. I’ll talk to you later, get some rest for tonight.” Max tells her. 

“Ben, we need to keep talking, come one we can patrol and talk at the same time.” Max says and pats his grandson on the back and takes him out the door. 

Kevin is left alone with Gwen and she’s starting to look exhausted. 

“Are you okay?” He asks her, in the gentlest tone he could muster from his own strange voice. 

Gwen finally looks up at Kevin for the first time since he barged in. She looks weary and her eyes are filled with worry as she looks at him. 

“I’m fine now...” She sighs, “I mean physically I’m okay. Mentally, ask me in a few hours.” she replied. 

“What about you? You just found out one of your Plumbers was running a coup behind your back.” She places her hand gently on Kevin’s Petrosapien arm, looking up at him with genuine concern. 

Kevin freezes under her touch, he wasn’t expecting that. Her hands were so warm and soft, the shift in someone treating him with gentleness was jarring. To be honest, he wasn’t expecting Gwen to be the one who took Morningstar out either. She was full of surprises today. 

Kevin swallows hard before responding to her, “I’m any word that can define anger right now, but I’m not surprised.” He averts his eyes from Gwen. 

“If anything, I’m more irritated that I didn’t know it was Morningstar immediately.” Kevin mumbles. 

“He oversaw private information and intel, he’s the last person you would suspect. He was also unfortunately very charismatic.” Gwen says assuredly. 

Kevin doesn’t reply but starts moving to the door. 

“Come on, it’s been a long day. You should probably go to sleep.” Kevin states. 

Gwen nods and follows but she goes to say one last thing, “Kevin,” he turns his head to look down at her in question. “thank you for coming to save me.” She smiles at him. 

Kevin scoffs at that, “Saving? You?” He sends her a crooked smile from his mouth with fangs hanging out, “You didn’t need saving. You handled that all with little effort or need of assistance.” Kevin said to her. 

Gwen’s face flushes pink, and she turns her head away from Kevin’s view. 

“Thanks.” She mumbles quietly. 

The two make their way towards the living quarters and pass the multiple Plumbers running around the castle looking for Morningstar. 

If anything, that’s what makes Kevin’s blood boil right now. Is that Morningstar was able to sneak away. He hopes that Morningstar is dumb enough to try and find Gwen, because Kevin’s itching to punch that smug blonde man halfway across the room. He glances to the side to look at Gwen, she’s coming down, he can tell. Once Kevin knows that Morningstar is locked up, he’s going to make a personal visit that he can promise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the longest chapter I've written? It was a lot to get through and I'm not even halfway done. I hope you guys are enjoying it and let me know. Thanks for still reading Ben 10 content in 2021


	17. The Library

They ripped the castle a part, looking up and down, and into the tunnels that twist and turned under the castle. The tunnel system only the Plumbers knew of, and there were no traces left of Mike Morningstar. It was as if the man had never been in the castle at all. There were no traces left of any of his belongings either. Who knows where he could have disappeared and with what information he took. 

On one hand that made Gwen slightly terrified, on the other hand, she felt overwhelmingly relieved to know that he wasn’t in the castle. 

Gwen has felt fear and dread before, but only once. When her parents died, Gwen felt as if her world had crashed. She didn’t know what to do, and Ken was her sole guardian at the young age of eighteen. That was the worst feeling in the world for her, everything was so unknown. She still knew that she and Ken would be fine, because they had each other. They would always have each other, well they used to. 

Even Gwen trading her freedom for Ken was nowhere near the same feeling of loss and dread she had when her parents died. 

When Morningstar drained her of every ounce of energy she had... that was something entirely different. It left Gwen feeling hollow. She has never felt something so dark and endless. The pain and sorrow that overcame her body and soul felt endless. 

Gwen didn’t think she could find the strength in herself to even take her energy back. 

She wasn’t lying when she told Kevin thank you for saving her. He did. If Kevin hadn’t come when he did, Gwen doesn’t know if she would even be here still. 

Gwen may have taken her power back, but it was only because Kevin had helped her break free. 

Since the unveiling of Morningstar’s character, Max told Gwen she can roam more freely, without Rook or Ben escorting her. 

She misses them in an odd way the first time she leaves her bedroom and finds no one waiting for her. 

In another she’s excited to finally do what she’s been waiting for this whole time, read in the library. 

Kevin wasn’t lying when he said the library had magical texts and artifacts, in fact the royal library has more texts than she can imagine. Even if it was a lie that Kevin fabricated about Gwen breaking in for these texts. Gwen thinks she could see herself breaking in to steal them. She imagines if she did know of them, and had more skilled use in her own abilities, she could have easily snuck in to this library. 

That or she’s a little too confident in herself. 

She’s vibrating at the idea of all those magical resources at her fingertips. For years all she’s had is the tiny spell book from Mr. Baumann’s bookshop. She can’t help but feel excited at the endless number of resources she’s receiving. 

There is a small voice in the back of her head that reminds her that these sources come at the cost of her freedom, so she can provide a service for Kevin. She just can’t find it in her to listen too closely to that voice. 

The first thing she focuses on upon arriving at the library, is helping the Plumbers fix the damage Morningstar had caused. He burned a few texts that Gwen hopes are not the only copies of those books, magical or not. Not to mention the bookcases that were broken by Ben flying into them. 

Gwen’s in the large library with a team of about ten individuals who are trying to sort out the books to see what is still useable. Gwen takes it upon herself to handle the bookcases. 

She uses her mana and can grab the bookshelves that have fallen over. The ones that don’t have too much damage Gwen is able to lift and put back where they belong. The ones that had various shelves broken, Gwen frowns and lifts those into a pile to be disposed of. 

With Gwen using her mana freely and without being drained constantly, she finds that she can easily move these large objects. She finishes her job quickly and moves on to help sort through the books. That was the biggest job. 

The Plumbers that are in the room with her thank her for lifting the bookcases back up. The relief on their faces is clear when they realize they didn’t have to try and lift those twelve-foot-tall oak bookcases. 

Gwen helps sort through the books and tries to sort them by genre rather than by author. She has them place the books on the table in rows, and she uses her mana to put the books back on the shelves. The whole process takes less than two or three hours. The Plumbers who she helps thank her again and let her know that the clean-up would have taken all day without her. She flushes from the compliments and waves them off. She was just happy to be in the library. 

She spends the rest of her afternoon there, finding a few magical texts that she wants to read through. She finds one book that focuses on battle charms and she starts studying what seems manageable to her. 

It isn’t until Kevin comes to look for her that she realizes how late it is. Or that she hasn’t paused to eat anything. 

Kevin interrupts her flow of reading just by walking through the door to the library. His large form is easy for her to see out of the corner of her eyes, but also just hearing his heavy footsteps makes his presence clear. He doesn’t press her immediately but waits for her to come to a stop and acknowledge him. 

She bookmarks the page she’s on and looks up at him. She waits for him to address her first. 

“You know that it’s dinner time, right? You’ve been here since this morning. They thought you’d need brute force to drag you out of here.” Kevin tells her with a small, playful smirk on his face. 

Gwen rolls her eyes at him and stands, holding her book tightly to her chest. 

“Oh relax! I’ve been practically begging Ben or Rook to bring me here and they were always too busy to do it. Of course, this is where I’m spending my chaperon free time.” Gwen replies and moves to step next to him. 

“So, you’ve conveniently decided to skip lunch?” Kevin remarks to her and starts to walk to the entrance, his steps much larger than Gwen’s. 

She shuffles next to him to keep his pace, “No!” she replies defensively, “I just forgot...” 

Kevin chuckles at that statement and turns to look at the small woman beside him. 

“Come on, you’d forget to sleep too if I left you in there. I don’t think we’d see you for days.” Kevin simple says. 

Gwen is trying to keep her pace set with Kevin’s but it’s more of a workout than she’d care to say. Kevin’s one step is about four of her own. 

Kevin turns his head to see Gwen’s face tinting pink in warmth, he can hear her footsteps falling quickly to try and keep up with him. She’s been sedentary almost all day besides when she was helping clean the library. She was getting winded trying to keep up with Kevin’s large pace. 

He slows down slightly so they can keep a similar speed, she sighs a little in relief. 

“We usually don’t eat together.” Gwen ponders out loud, trying to keep the conversation going. “So why did you come get me?” 

Kevin gives her an offended look. Gwen’s face burns brightly in embarrassment. 

“Not that I don’t want to eat with you! We just usually don’t have meals together. I’m just curious.” she says quickly in a flustered tone. 

Kevin scoffs but replies anyway, “You’re curious about a lot of things.” 

Gwen makes a face at him and holds his gaze. 

Kevin shakes his head at her, “Ben and Rook already ate, they realized after that you weren’t there.” 

“They didn’t notice that I wasn’t there?” Gwen questions. 

Kevin laughs, a good loud deep laugh, “They never have alone time together. I’m not surprised they didn’t notice you weren’t there.” 

Gwen nods her head in agreement, “So they sent you to grab me?” she cocks her eyebrow up. 

Kevin, without missing a beat says, “No, they had no clue where you were. I knew you’d be in here, you looked like you wanted to cry last night after you saw the bookshelves littering the floor.” He chuckles to himself a little and leads himself and Gwen into the dining room. 

“I did _not_ look like I was going to cry last night...” She huffs as she follows Kevin to grab one of the few dinners left on the buffet table against the wall. 

Kevin hums in reply, “No I’m pretty sure there were tears in your eyes. Some mumbling about the loss of knowledge or whatever.” 

Gwen places her food down on the table and shoves Kevin affectionately, “Oh ha ha! Make fun of the girl who loves books, you’re so original!” 

Kevin’s form doesn’t even budge for the slight force of Gwen’s hand. 

Kevin takes a seat at the head of the dining table, the only chair that can really support his form, without a plate. 

Gwen starts to eat but eyes that Kevin hasn’t grabbed anything. Gwen doesn’t even have to ask because Kevin can read her face. Gwen’s emotions always read on her face. She forgets that she doesn’t have a poker face sometimes. 

“I already ate.” Kevin says softly, nodding at her to finish her own meal. 

“Oh.” Gwen says and focuses all her attention on her plate. “You don’t have to stay with me if you need to be somewhere.” she says quietly, still looking at her plate. 

“No, I want to be here.” He replies smoothly. 

Gwen looks up in surprise at that statement and finds Kevin smiling at her softly, or as soft as his face can be. 

“No one should eat alone.” he clarifies to her. 

Gwen returns a smile to him, “Thanks Kevin.” she says gently. 

Gwen had spent many years eating meals alone. With Ken working in his own shop, usually at all hours, Gwen had eaten many a meal alone. She was used to it. During the past month of being in the castle and having Ben or Rook, and sometimes both sharing meals with her, she had forgotten how lonely it can be alone. 

She wonders how many meals Kevin must have had alone to feel the need to be with her as she has a much to late dinner. 

She thinks about the King and Queen dying when he was roughly ten or eleven, and how long Kevin has been alone. 

She decides that she would like to eat many more meals with Kevin, whether he likes it or not. He shouldn’t be alone either. 


	18. Kevin Versus Gwen Round Two

Gwen has a significantly short amount of time before her new teacher is supposed to arrive. She’s excited but she’s also ready to do something. Anything, she needs to practice using magic or she’s going to go wild. Her mana has grown exponentially since she took her energy back from Morningstar. She's practically twitching to exert this energy. There’s only so many generic spells she can practice and only so many times she can hurl a sandbag across the field. After knowing that Morningstar was draining her, she was ready to see what she could do. 

She has already cleared up her schedule and was ready to start sparring with Kevin again. She had pestered him after dinner about sparring before the week was over. Kevin was hesitant since the Morningstar incident was just a few days old and he didn’t want to push Gwen. 

Gwen was adamant though; she would not stop until Kevin agreed. Gwen knew that she could be obnoxious and get her way if she pushed enough. She also knew that Kevin wouldn’t back down from a challenge. 

“Kevin I’m serious! I feel fine, I just want one good sparring session to know!” Gwen whined, leaning her weight onto Kevin as they walked down the hallway. 

“Gwen I’m just saying I think it’s too soon. Your body needs time to heal.” Kevin replies to her and nudges her off. 

Gwen frowns at him and steps in front of Kevin so he can't look away from her. 

“Kevin, I just want to know if I couldn’t hit you because I was being drained or because I’m bad.” Gwen has her arms crossed over her chest with a look of determination. 

“Gwen you’re not bad-” Kevin starts but Gwen interrupts him. 

“Then you’re scared I’m going to knock you across the field?” She cocks her brow up at him, challenging him. 

Kevin rolls his eyes, “Please, I’m not scared of a girl whose two sizes too small.” he replies haughtily. 

“Then spar with me tomorrow!” Gwen says in excitement. “Or are you worried about keeping your promise to me?” She questions. 

Kevin’s body goes rigid, and he scowls at her, crossing his own four arms across his torso, “I always keep my promises. Tomorrow around noon, meet me on the sparring field.” he says. 

Gwen smirks at him, knowing she’s won, and turns around to continue walking back to her room. 

Now she’s outside, waiting for Kevin, and she is bouncing with pent up energy. She knows that she’s more powerful than the first time she’s fought Kevin. She can feel the mana running through her body as her fingertips almost spark. It feels like it’s ready to burst out of her. 

Kevin finally meets her on the field and the two don’t waste any time before they start. 

Gwen starts first, and immediately shoots her mana at Kevin in quick rounds, unrelenting. 

Kevin jumps before Gwen can immediately hit him, but she follows him in her aim. Kevin lands much closer to her and he puts all his weight into his landing. The ground shakes and quakes beneath Gwen. She loses her footing for only a second and catches herself. 

She has little time to recover as Kevin is barreling towards her at full speed. 

She throws a shield up to surround her before Kevin can hit her. He sends a few good punches to her shield, cracking it. 

Gwen thrusts her hands out and casts her first spell, “ _Tur-_ _bo_ ” her spell sends Kevin flying back away from her. 

Gwen slides herself back from the force of the winds that she projects from her hands. 

Kevin uses his weight to slow himself down and digs into the ground. He holds his arms up to shield himself from the force of Gwen’s wind. He pushes against it and slowly starts walking towards Gwen. Using his own wings to help propel himself. 

Gwen can feel Kevin moving through her mana and she starts to change course. 

“ _Emocha_ _Objectia_ ” Gwen casts her spell directly at Kevin, with him having no time to move once Tur-bo ends. 

Her spell hits Kevin directly in the chest, shocking him, and sending his back across the field. Kevin lands on his back with a loud thud. 

Gwen’s excitement is cut short though as Kevin launches himself back up. He uses his Petrosapien arm and starts launching crystal shards back at Gwen. 

Gwen throws up her shields quickly and thinks about her next move strategically. She knows she can’t attack Kevin with brute force, that’s all he is. 

Her shield starts to crack more, and Gwen throws up another. Kevin starts to move towards her and is now using his Pyronite arm to add to his attack. Crystals and fire are raining on Gwen and if she doesn’t stop him fast, she’ll be done for. 

Gwen looks down trying to think and she digs her feet into the dirt. As she does that, suddenly her eyes light up with mischief. 

“ _Terra_ _cavo_ _”_ she calls out and slams her foot into the ground pointing towards Kevin. 

A large crack in the ground shoots from Gwen’s foot and shoots at Kevin. He’s too busy throwing his own attacks at Gwen to notice her working from the ground below him. 

The earth shakes beneath Kevin’s feet and sinks below him quickly. A larger muddy crater forms and drags Kevin down into the ground twisting around him as it grabs him. 

When it’s done the earth has hardened and trapped Kevin in the ground. He fell far into the earth, where the only parts of his body that are exposed above the surface were his shoulders and head. 

Gwen smiles in excitement and runs toward him. Kevin looks impressed and is excited to finally see a new spell from her. 

“This is actually a useful spell, where did you find this?” Kevin asks her and she rushes up to him, heaving and clearly worn. 

“It was in that new spell book the one I found in the library!” She smiles brightly at him. 

Kevin nods in understanding, “Well that’s good, that’s also the best you’ve preformed all month.” He smirks up at her from the ground. 

“Yes!” Gwen pumps her fist in excitement. 

“Don’t get too excited, I can still get out. Back up unless you want large chunks to hit you.” Kevin says smugly and smirks at her. 

Her face falls slightly but she does as he says and backs up. 

Kevin uses his Pyronite fire to heat up the earth below him and uses the pressure to send him out. He breaks through the earth easily and jumps out from the ground. 

“What?” Gwen shrieks out and crosses her arms, “Could you do that this whole time?” She asks. 

Kevin is brushing the dirt off him as he casually walks over to Gwen. 

“Kinda, but that’s not the point.” he says as he comes to Gwen. 

“That,” He points back to the giant hole in the ground. “is the best thing you’ve done since you exploded the cell in the dungeons. I think even Ben would have a problem getting out of that if he wasn’t the right alien.” Kevin tells her. 

Gwen stops frowning and feels better about where she’s developed. Then a mischievous smile covers her face as she stares up at Kevin. 

Kevin’s face distorts into confusion as he meets her eyes. 

“Why are you lookin at me like that for?” he asked her. 

“I get to learn something new about you.” She states plainly in a chipper tone. 

Kevin’s face turns solemn, but he nods in agreement. “One, you get one question Gwen.” He says sternly, “no follow ups either.” he adds. 

Gwen nods and the woman is practically vibrating with her excitement to finally learn more about Kevin, she doesn’t even think about how heavy her question might be for him. 

“What happened to you, I mean, how did you end up...” She pauses trying to find the right words. “stuck in this form?” she finally asks. 

It’s the question that’s been burning in the back of Gwen’s throat since she saw the family portrait during that first week with Ben. Ben wouldn’t budge on any information. That’s how she learned he’s a good friend. 

Kevin’s face pales considerably, or at least Gwen thinks that’s what is happening to his face. His body is stiff, but he makes direct eye contact with her. 

“Let’s go somewhere where we can sit.” Kevin says walking towards the castle, “It’s a long story.” 


	19. Kevin Levin's Coronation Day

Kevin’s body shifts uncomfortably as Gwen stares him down in his study. The two have been sitting for a few minutes. The room was silent and the air was thick with anticipation as he gets his story together. His palms are sweaty and his throat feels dry, but he is a man of his word. Gwen should know the truth about Kevin's condition. He was the one asking her to fix his own mistake. She should have all the information about it. Kevin had decided fairly recently that Gwen could decide if she truly wants to help him or not. 

Kevin takes a deep breath, looks up at Gwen, and begins. 

* * *

Kevin was eleven and Ben was ten. They were only a year apart and the two had grown up together. Running around the same castle, playing the same games, as if the world around them wasn’t screaming for change. 

Kevin doesn't remember a time before Ben. He vaguely remembers crying when he was around four because he didn't understand why Ben wasn’t living in the castle. He always had Ben, they were a duo, that's just how they worked. 

Well, it was until Kevin ruined it. 

Kevin’s father, Devin, was Osmosian and had ruled over the land as his father before him. Kevin would too in time. The Osmosian line was new and had reformed the kingdom to integrate aliens into a very human land. Kevin’s grandfather had come from his own kingdom that was hidden beneath. Undertown, a world filled with aliens who had escaped from their own war ridden planets to find a new home. 

The citizens of Undertown were expanding, they needed more room to thrive and truly live, but human beings were a different issue all together. Aliens had migrated underground in fear of the humans. Human beings were a species that couldn't even cooperate with each other, much less another species entirely. Kevin’s grandfather, with the help of the Plumbers organization, lead them out from the dark ages of fearing aliens. The Plumbers at the time were made up of only humans, so for them to collaborate with aliens changed the kingdom forever. 

The Plumbers and Kevin’s grandfather agreed on mixing their political powers. The Osmosian blood line could continue to rule as they had been, but the Plumbers were to be a part of parliament and be equally as integrated with how they ran the kingdom. That included the Plumber who wielded the Omnitrix being the king's right hand advisor and knight.

That man was a much younger Max Tennyson. He held the Omnitrix through Kevin’s grandfather's reign and Devin’s. 

Kevin’s dad was fierce in his longing to unite the division between aliens and humans. Maybe he was so invested because he fell in love with a human woman. No one really knows, but his reign was one of many changes. It also normalized human and alien relationships, and the children who came from it. 

Devin was working with the Plumbers day and night to integrate businesses, living units, and cities to be alien friendly. He did so without compromising what human culture was already thriving. He would spend days or weeks in any given town or city, just working with the locals. His heart was kind, and his leadership was ferocious. 

When Kevin was eleven, his parents left for a diplomatic meeting in a town on the outskirts of the kingdom's boarders. 

The meeting was a setup by the Forever Knights, a rouge group of Plumbers and other humans who were against the alien integration and the new reign of peace. They were ambushed and without Max being there to aid Devin, they were murdered. Threats came from the Forever Knights to the Plumbers about destroying them next. 

Max was much older at this point; he knew his time was short. So, he pushed for the coronation of Kevin, which in turn is also Ben’s coronation for being the next wielder of the Omnitrix.

The coronation was where it all went wrong. 

Kevin was a child, he didn’t understand. He couldn’t make the connection that he couldn’t have the Omnitrix. He was jealous that Ben would get the Omnitrix and be able to turn into all of these cool aliens. Kevin wanted to do that too. Kevin didn’t want to just use his powers; he could just absorb energy and absorb materials. He wanted to be just as cool as Ben was going to be. Kevin didn't even like his powers. 

Kevin was also trying to understand the concept that his parents weren’t coming back. They were dead. When they told him that, he obviously knew what being dead meant. It was the aftermath that solidified what death truly meant. When he cried out at night from a nightmare, no one would come. Not his mother who used to smooth his hair down and tell me silly stories to go back to bed. When he ran around and scraped his knee, his dad wasn't there to tell him that scraps just make you stronger. It was the most clear when he ate dinner and shared the table alone.

He had spent the month before the coronation hiding away in his own room or act out in aggression. He wouldn’t talk to Ben or play with him anymore. Ben was also learning about the Omnitrix from his grandpa. When Kevin did see Ben, all he wanted to do was talk about the Omnitrix and all of the aliens inside. It only made Kevin bitter and angry. 

That’s all Kevin had been feeling, anger. He was angry at Ben for getting the Omnitrix. He was angry at Max for not leaving with his parents to help protect them. He was angry at his parents for leaving him. He was angry at the world that was left to him. Most of all, he was angry at himself. He didn’t know what to do, his dad hadn’t told him what came when Kevin rules the kingdom. His dad had wanted Kevin to be a child and be with Ben. 

So, on the day of his coronation, Kevin finally snapped. He watched Ben receive the Omnitrix, watched it cling onto Ben’s wrist like it was a part of him. Kevin’s rage had finally boiled over, jealously consuming him. He grabbed onto Ben’s wrist, trying to rip the Omnitrix off him. He just wanted to know what having the Omnitrix felt like, if only for a day. 

Kevin was so young; his father hadn’t spent enough time with him to focus on Kevin’s Osmosian powers. Kevin’s powers were still underdeveloped and new to him, he would constantly have explosive episodes from his own energy and how he absorbs it. 

He wanted the Omnitrix so badly, he accidentally absorbed energy from it. Kevin never knew how to stop absorbing; he would easily take more than he needed. That was easy with the Omnitrix, he took more, more than his small body could ever need. The Omnitrix was this endless sea of alien DNA and it was all at Kevin’s fingertips. 

When Ben finally maneuvered himself out of Kevin’s grasp, it was too late. 

Kevin’s body was over exerted. He was in blind pain, his body contorting into something it wasn’t meant to be. He writhed on the ground for an unknown amount of time. The pain he felt that day was immeasurable. 

When Kevin could finally see again, and move somewhat, his body wasn’t his anymore. It had turned into an amalgamation of ten of Ben’s aliens. Aliens Ben hadn’t even transformed into yet.

Kevin’s small and lanky body had almost tripled in size, his main torso and legs being Tetramand. He had grown an extra set of arms, two being identical to that of a Vulpimancer, one from a Pyronite, and one from a Petrosapien. Kevin also had grown a tail now, from a Kineceleran. His back was made up from a Galvanic Mechamorph with the wings from a Lepidopterran. 

He had transformed into something he never wanted. He was what the humans had feared of, a monster. 

Kevin looked around him scared of what happened, Plumbers were facing him, ready to attack. Kevin looked back at Ben, who was staring up at his friend in shock and fear. 

Kevin used his new wings and flew away, frightened of what he had done and still overcome with anger and grief. 

* * *

When Kevin finished talking, he couldn’t look at Gwen. His head was down, staring at his feet. 

He was met with silence that seemed to drag on for much longer than he wanted. He just needed her to say something, anything. 

His mind started spiraling like it always did when he thought about his coronation day. He tries not to think or even speak about it, it sends him in a never ending loop of what ifs.

He knew she would be frightened. How could someone not be? Or disgusted by him and his selfish actions. 

He could feel one of his legs start to shake aggressively as he waited for her to respond to him, his anxiety ate away at him. 

She wouldn’t stay, there’s no way she would, not after that story. The story of a child who was too jealous to control himself. He was disgusted by himself there was no way Gwen wouldn't be too. 

Especially after telling her he absorbs energy. He wasn’t any better than Mike Morningstar. He wonders if he could still absorb energy as freely as he used to, if he would turn into the same monster as Morningstar. Sucking dry anyone or anything. He didn’t want to, but how would he know? He hasn’t done that in so long, for so much fear was instilled in him. He still always had anger simmering to the surface, threatening to boil over one day. Hatred that tasted like sulfur in his mouth. 

He was mad at himself, more than anything now. He hated what he had done, he despised every aspect of his character. He was selfish, crude, and rude. He was being selfish now, hoping against everything that Gwen would still want to help him. That she would still like being around him. 

He didn’t realize Gwen was talking to him until she gently grasped one of his hands. 

He jerked his head up at looked at her, her eyes were soft as she looked at him. 

“Kevin, "she says him name so softly, her voice cradles it like she’s afraid to break him. It wrecks his heart, no one has treated him like he could crumble since he was a small child. He’s so worried about what Gwen thinks right now, he doesn’t know if he can handle rejection from her. 

“You know that none of this was your fault?” She holds his hand tighter; her voice is breaking a little as she speaks to him. “It was an accident, you were eleven. You just found out your parents had died, and you had no one to help you cope with that trauma.” 

Kevin can’t look at her in the eyes, her voice is thick, and she sounds so saddened by his story. He doesn’t deserve sympathy. 

“Stop, _I_ did this-” Kevin gargles out, his own voice is shaking now as he chokes on his own words.

Gwen softly puts her hand on his face, it’s very intimate. This is the closest he’s ever been to someone that he wasn’t fighting. She forces him to look at her. 

“Kevin, look at me please.” He shifts his gaze slowly to her; her eyes are blazing. He feels the determination rolling off her. 

“Kevin you were a child. You deserve to make mistakes. All kids do, it’s apart of being one. What matters is how you are now, in this moment. Are you the same eleven-year-old kid?” Gwen asks him. 

Kevin shakes his head, no. He doesn’t know if he can speak anymore. He feels the sting of what could be bile in the back of his throat. 

“Exactly. Kevin you are ruling the kingdom your father left you. You are doing it the best you can, and the Plumbers respect you. God, don’t even get me started on how much Ben respects you.” Gwen rolls her eyes slightly. He knows she’s trying to lighten the mood. 

“I asked and begged him to tell me anything about you and all he said was it wasn’t his place.” she says, “He was right too. It means so much more to me that you did tell me, even if it was because you kept a promise. Thank you.” 

Kevin can’t hold it back anymore, he starts crying. It shakes his whole body, and he leans into Gwen slightly. He knows he’s too heavy for her to hold up. He needs some support though. He can’t handle the emotions that are wracking through his body right now. 

He hasn’t cried since he was a child, he thinks. He hasn’t allowed himself too. He hasn’t even told that story from his perspective. 

He thanks whatever force in the universe that brought Gwen to him in this moment. He didn’t realize how much he needed this. 

Her reassurance and sympathy are a gift that no one else could provide him. She listened to him, and that was all Kevin could ask for in that moment. 

Kevin doesn’t know how long he sits there crying into Gwen, but she gracefully lets him. 


	20. Great Anodite Verdona Arrives

Gwen paces back and forth in Kevin’s study, walking herself in circles. Kevin thinks she's circled the room around sixty or so times. His eyes watch her lazily as he also tries to get through some sort of paperwork. Hearing Gwen muttering to herself is a little too distracting to actually get his work done. 

Gwen’s footsteps are heavy though as she digs her heels into his carpet. If she continues, she might leave marks.

“You’re stressing out for no reason.” Kevin mutters to her. 

She groans and turns her head sharply toward him. “Kevin I’m meeting someone today who can teach me everything about magic! This is all I ever wanted and what if she doesn’t like me?” She crosses her arms over her chest and stares Kevin down. 

“Don’t give me the hostile glare I’m not the one stressing you out. I’m just saying you’re stressed for no reason.” he tells her. 

Gwen continues to pace in circles. 

She’s excited about learning, it’s all she’s ever wanted. To finally have this opportunity to learn about magic is spectacular and every possible adjacent adjective to that. It’s just her nerves eating away at her. She practically got no sleep last night and her stomach twists tightly. 

What if she’s not good enough? What if she can’t perform magic as well as she thinks? She’s biting her lower lip raw as she continues to pace. 

She finally can have access to resources that she’s never even dreamed of. Now she’s worried about impressing this new teacher. She knows that Kevin’s making an excellent point, but that doesn’t negate her anxiety, however. 

Ben comes barging into the room, swinging open the door to the study and almost plows Gwen down. He’s talking a mile a minute and isn’t even phased by almost knocking over Gwen. Rook follows shortly after and grabs onto Gwen to help steady her. 

“Tennyson do you look before you do anything?” Kevin asks in slight irritation. 

Ben waves his hand at Kevin and shrugs his shoulders, “It’s fine! You love it when I interrupt your day Kev.” Ben says and he places his hands on Kevin’s desk and leans his weight forward with a wide smile. 

Rook rolls his eyes at that and pulls Ben back by the collar of his shirt, “No, I think Kevin means how you almost ran over Gwen.” Rook’s tone is flat as he points to Gwen behind him who is glaring daggers into Ben’s back. 

“Oh whoops!” Ben says, smiling sheepishly at her. He scratches the back of his head, “I really didn’t see you! Sorry Gwen.” 

“Ben...” Gwen’s voice is pitched in annoyance. 

Kevin’s smirking at him waiting for Gwen to blow up. He knows she’s been on edge and on her last hair, which is why he’s been quiet with Gwen pacing in his office. He’s just glad she’s exploding on Ben and not him. 

“You picked the wrong day to stress her out Tennyson...” Kevin mutters and shares a pointed look with Rook. 

Rook slowly steps back behind Kevin’s desk. 

“What do you think she is about to do to him?” Rook leans into Kevin and asks him. 

“Honestly, my money is on her deckin him.” Kevin says smugly. 

Rook nods his head in agreement and watches the two in front of them. 

“I’m under a lot of pressure today Ben, if you could just not have your usual energy,” she gestures her hand at him going up and down, “that would be great!” 

Gwen’s jaw is clenched tightly, and her fists are balled so tight her fingernails dig into her skin. 

Ben rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, but Rook interrupts. 

“That would not be wise for you to do.” He advises Ben. 

Ben ignores Rook and turns back to Gwen to continue, “Please, Gwen chill out! I just needed to tell Kevin,” Ben gestures back toward his friend, “that we need to change our schedule for this week.” 

Gwen’s face is set in a stern frown and her eye is slightly twitching, Ben has never seen her stressed, but he doesn’t think that he likes it. 

“Great you told him now _leave_!” 

Gwen projects her cerulean blue mana from her hand and starts shoving Ben back towards the door. 

Ben digs his feet into the ground to try and stop her and shouts, “hey! Gwen stop it! Kev? Rook? A little help?” Gwen kicks him out the door and shuts it in his face. 

“If I knew it was that easy to kick Ben out, I would have a long time ago.” Kevin whispers to Rook. 

Rook nods in agreement, “I did warn him.” He said. He is still cautious about moving from where he stands. He is slightly frightened of Gwen’s huffing form as she glowers at the door waiting for Ben to come back in. 

The doorknob jiggles slightly and Kevin and Rook go rigid. Gwen balls her hands into fists and is ready to shoot her mana at Ben for him to just leave her in peace. 

When the door does open it’s Max with a woman behind him, a hood covering her features. Ben is shuffling behind them and goes over to Rook and Kevin with a look of betrayal on his face. 

Gwen’s body straightens up and she stops glaring at the open door. 

The room is silent as Max closes the door behind him and looks at Gwen. He smiles broadly at her and gestures to the woman next to him. 

“Gwen, this is my good friend Verdona.” Max introduces the woman next to him and she removes her hood. 

She looks surprisingly human for someone who was supposed to be an Anodite. Which is definitely _not_ human. The woman looks around Max’s age, with hair just like silver. 

Gwen's face is shocked and confused, “Grandma?” she asks in a pitched tone. 

Verdona looks over Gwen’s form once and gasps. She clasps her hands together in excitement and rushes to pull Gwen into a hug. 

“Kiddo! I haven’t seen you in a while,” she backs up and squishes Gwen’s face in her hands. “I didn’t know you had the spark!” 

Gwen wriggles out her grandmothers hold and stares at her in confusion then back to Max. 

“How, I don’t-” She pauses to gather her thoughts and what she wants to ask first. She’s never been more confused. 

“How do you two know each other?” Gwen asks them, pointing between Max and Verdona. 

The room is dead silent, the question hangs in the air a little too long. Max and Verdona give each other a knowing look, one that leaves everyone else out of their weird private circle. Gwen turns and looks at her friends behind her in confusion and they give her the same response. No one understands a single thing that was happening in the study. 

“You didn’t tell them?” Verdona asks Max with a slight frown. 

“I didn’t think it was that important, I didn’t think, at least not in my wildest dreams she was Frank's girl.” Max says apologetically.

Verdona slaps Max playfully, “Of course it’s important! It’s the most stellar love story the galaxy has ever seen between an Anodite and a particular human man with a spark!” Her eyes are bright and she sends a wink to Max before looking at Gwen. 

“Kiddo, he’s your grandfather. Max and I are married.” Verdona says, smiling at her softly. 

Gwen’s face falls as she tries to process the information given to her. As the information slowly clicks together, she turns slightly to make eye contact with Ben who looks just as surprised. 

“We’re cousins?” They say at the same time as they look at each other. 

“It appears so, if I followed the story correctly.” Rook chimes in. 

Kevin starts laughing loudly and hysterically. 

“What are you laughing at Kevin!?” Ben screeches at his friend. 

“I’m sorry! It’s just too funny that your long-lost cousin found her way here! Of course, you two are cousins! Nothing normal ever happens here!” Kevin continues to laugh like this is the funniest thing in the world to him. 

“Okay that’s it!” Gwen’s hands glow blue, and she pushes her mana around Kevin, Rook, and Ben pushing them toward the door easily. 

“Thank you for your time but you need to go now!” She shoves the out easily and looks back to Max and Verdona. 

“Do that again.” Verdona commands, her eyes are sparkling with mischief and wonder. 

“No, not until you two tell me what is going on!” Gwen demands and crosses her arms. 

The two elders look at each other and sigh. They agree to discuss the matter. 

“Ben deserves to hear this too; it involves him as well.” Max says and turns to grab his grandson. 

Gwen doesn’t budge and is sending her grandmother a fierce look. 

“What? Don’t look at me like that sweetie.” Verdona asks Gwen, cocking her brow at her. 

“Grandma Verdona please,” Gwen puts her hand up gesturing for her to stop. “I just need to process what is going on right now.” 

Verdona shrugs and waits for Max to return. The two women sit in uncomfortable silence. Verdona keeps shifting her gaze back to Gwen, her body almost buzzing. 

“You want to say something don’t you?” Gwen sighs and holds her head in her hands. 

“Oh, come on! This is exciting if only a little confusing!” Verdona says grasping at Gwen’s hands and pulls them away from her face. 

“You get to learn who you _are_ Gwendolyn! Isn’t that exciting? Haven’t you wondered why it is you can do what you call magic and manipulate mana energy?” she asks genuinely looking Gwen in the eyes. 

She nods her head at her grandmother. 

Of course, she’s wondered about that. She could do things, things that Ken couldn’t, for a long time. That was before she found her spell book. She just thought she was lucky. Just simply a lucky girl who could make things work out for her no matter what. 

She never by any means thought it was hereditary, or by blood. 

“What am I?” She asks her grandmother quietly. 

“Why sweetie, you’re an Anodite, like me! We are beings made from pure energy!” Verdona exclaims in excitement. 

Gwen’s not really listening to what she’s saying after that. She’s spinning information around in her own head. She’s not human. She’s never really been completely a human. 

She’s an alien, or part alien at least. She’s not really sure anymore. All Gwen knows is she’s very confused. Why didn’t her parents tell her about this? Or about Ben and her now Grandfather? 

She feels a little sick. 

Her thoughts are interrupted by Max and Ben coming in. Or was it Grandpa Max now? She didn’t know what to think. 

“Okay you two, you might want to sit down.” Grandpa Max gestures to two chairs in front of Kevin’s desk. 

“Grandpa why didn’t you tell me that Gwen’s my cousin? Or that I have a Grandma?” Ben asks immediately after he sits down. 

Gwen feels a headache coming on. It’s like her brain is pulsating aggressively against her skull. 

“We’ll tell you guys whatever you need to know, but we should let you know why we made the choices we did.” He replies to Ben. 

Ben and Gwen share a look and settle themselves into the chairs. It would be a long evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How many Ben 10 characters can I fit into this fic?? More than I think I originally thought. Spoiler alert: No Vilgax will appear. Sad I know.  
> Anyway Verdona is finally here, we've got some of Kevin's back story last chapter, so now we are getting all up in the Tennyson family drama.  
> It's wild, it's weird, but they're family right?


	21. The Tennyson Family

Max and Verdona fell in love like one might find themselves falling into a good book. It was exceptionally easy and felt like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When they met it seemed like the clouds had finally parted to shine the sun directly onto them. Being in each others lives was natural, second nature even. Verdona kept coming back to earth to see Max, and for her to just settle down with him made sense.

Having their own kids also felt natural and seemed like the next step in their lives. So, when they had their boys, Verdona looked for any sign of Anodite powers from them. Sadly, her sons came up short of her expectations. She loved them regardless of it. 

Max was working day in and day out as the king's knight and advisor. Naturally that meant his family also lived in the castle. Verdona raised her sons with the love and affection a mother should, and they got to see their father almost every day working with aliens and humans alike. 

Their family sounded picture perfect on paper.

Carl and Frank, as they grew up, were nothing alike. Carl was obsessed with Max and the Plumbers, he loved what his father did and respected the days he could spend with Max in the office. Frank was the opposite; he silently watched his father work and noticed that sometimes Max spent weeks away from his family. Frank envied his brothers blind optimism, because he knew that one day, this work would take their father away...for good. 

Around the time the boys were in their late teens, Verdona had gone back to her home planet of Anodine. She knew her family didn’t need her as much and she wanted to reconnect with who she was. She thought she was losing touch with the mana and energy around her. Max didn’t need her either and no matter how much life he had in him; he was still just a human. Verdona would out live him. They always knew that. She would come back, just when her family called for her. 

When the two boys grew up and were married, with their own children, they lived within the city near the kingdom. That lasted for a while, the two brothers enjoying their separate lives, still only rarely seeing their father. Each had their own careers and were happily enjoying the kingdom their own father help carve. 

When Frank had his first child, his parents came to visit him. Kenneth was a cute little baby boy with cubby features all over and bright red hair, like his grandmother. Verdona peaked when she saw that, but he also didn’t have the spark of an Anodite. She gave her advice to her son about raising children and left. Promising to return for any future grandchildren.

Then Frank and Carl had children at the same time. Carl had a boy, who he named Benjamin, hair just as thick and brunette as Carl's. And Frank had a little girl, Gwendolyn, again with vibrant red hair. The two, ironically enough, shared a birthday. Again, Verdonna visited, but this time she stayed. She mentioned she would be around for a few years, just to be with her own grandchildren. 

It wasn’t until Frank fought with Max that the family dynamic started going south. Max wanted Ken to be the next one in the family to wield the Omnitrix. Max knew he was growing old, and his own sons were too old and had their own life paths to follow. So, he wanted to pick one of his grandchildren, and Ken was the oldest. 

Frank threw a fit, the last thing he wanted was his own son to be inducted into a lifestyle that he wouldn’t have a choice in. Frank would almost never see his son again, or worse, he'd die. Ken was also already showing signs, even at eight, that he was interested in technology and building things together. He didn’t have a fighting bone in his body. 

Frank packed up his family, had one last blow out with his father, and took his son and daughter to the edge of the kingdom. Verdona followed. Verdona stayed with Frank and his family for a few years, at least until Gwen was nine. Just long enough for Verdona to see if any of her grandchildren carried her bloodline. Turns out she was wrong about that, along with many other things in her lifetime. 

Max himself, while saddened by his strained relationship with Frank, continued to try and find someone to pass on his legacy too. He asked Carl about Ben. Carl had the exact opposite reaction to Frank. Carl was ecstatic and was more than happy to see his son become a future Plumber. 

Max took Ben to and from the castle many times, from the young age of four. That’s how Ben even met Kevin. Once Ben turned ten, Max took him to live with him full time in the castle. Just in time for a royal coronation.

That’s how the Tennyson's now ended up here, with the two cousins sitting in front of their grandparents in shock and disbelief. 

After the story is told and over, the two grandparents look ashamed of themselves, for different reasons. 

Ben and Gwen react differently to the bombarding of information. Ben’s own thoughts are reeling at the fact that he always thought the Omnitrix was supposed to go to him, knowing he was the second choice... he feels ill. He feels saddened at never even knowing about Gwen. His own parents mentioned them in passing, but almost as if they were a disgrace to the family name. Ben never knew. 

Gwen’s own feelings are placed in anger and betrayal. She’s furious at the people in front of her who are supposed to be her family. Family doesn’t do this; families aren’t supposed to fight and never see one another again. Her whole family, her entire life, has lied to her. Everyone _except_ Ken. 

Ken, who now could be anywhere, and should probably be here right now with her. Ken has always been her support system and he’s the reason Gwen’s sitting in this room right now. 

Gwen knows she has to find Ken.

This feeling sits and stirs in stomach, it burns as it churns around. She doesn't know if she's ever felt such a burning inside of her. She wants to break something, scream, and cry all at once. She feels disgusted by her excitement from earlier, it feels tainted now.

Gwen stands up quickly, averting her gaze from anyone in the room, and starts moving toward the door. 

“Gwen, sweetie-” Verdona holds her hand out to grab for Gwen. 

Gwen whirls around, her eyes are bloodshot from holding back her own angry tears. 

“What? What could you, any of you, possibly have to say to me right now?” She screams at them. Her voice breaks as a few tears break the threshold. She wipes them away furiously. 

The room is silent as they all stare at her, Ben’s own face is crumbling as he watches Gwen break down and realize what her own family has hidden from her. 

“Do either of you even know that my parents are gone? Do you?” Gwen’s accuses them the hurt is evident in her voice. 

Max and Verdona’s faces fall in shock at Gwen’s words. 

“Gwen, when did this happen?” Max asks the girl softly, but he doesn’t move any closer. 

Gwen scoffs at the two of them, “Oh please. I don’t need this right now. Of course, you two didn’t know, why would you?" She throws her hands up in exhaustion, "If this is what you all call family... I don’t want to be a part of it.” her tone is sharp as she glares ferociously at the pair. 

Verdona grabs a hold of Gwen by her shoulders, “Gwen you don’t mean that! I’m supposed to teach you, we can work this out. Please sit back down.” Verdona pleads with her granddaughter. 

“No! No, I’m going to find my brother." Gwen rips herself away from her grandmother. She starts to back away from her, "He’s the only one who has _ever_ bothered to look out for me! I don’t belong here and I’m a fool to believe I ever did.” she says intensely.

She storms to the door pulling it open, she gives one last genuine smile to Ben, “I’m sorry Ben.” She slams the door behind her. 

Ben shoots up out of his own chair after her, his own feelings are muddy and confusing, but he knows one thing. He doesn’t want to lose Gwen. 

Max nor Verdona try to stop him as he runs after her. The two are too overcome by their own share of mistakes.

“Gwen, Gwen please wait!” Ben screams after her as her figure runs down the corridor. 

Gwen stops and turns to see Ben, seeing that he is alone, she waits for him. Her body shakes and trembles from her own emotional outpour. 

Ben catches up to her, but stands a little away. Gwen looks frightened and upset and she reminds him of a scared dog right now. She's ready to bite at anyone.

“Gwen please, please don’t go. You _do_ belong here, with me, Rook, and Kevin! Please, I...” Ben’s face is crumbling under his own emotional weight. He doesn’t know what to think about their family right now. He knows that Rook and Kevin have always been there for him and Gwen has too. He doesn’t want to lose this weird found family. It’s his and he loves them. 

He takes a deep breath and looks up at Gwen, his own eyes match hers as tears burn in the corners. 

“Gwen, I’ve thought you were like my family before this. Rook and Kevin have been my family for so long and then you came in! I can’t imagine my life without you in it, even when we fight and pester each other. We can figure out Grandpa and Grandma later, but please... Please don’t leave.” The unsaid 'me' at the end of Ben's sentence hangs in the air. Ben's being selfish, he knows that, but he can't bear the thought of her leaving.

Ben holds onto Gwen’s hands tightly, begging for her to stay. He doesn’t think he can handle her leaving on top of everything. He doesn’t think his heart can handle that kind of pain again. Not after Kevin... 

Gwen hears the pain in Ben’s voice, but she’s blinded by her own hurt right now. Gwen’s heart pulls when she hears Ben’s genuine words, begging her not to leave. Gwen knows she's not mad at Ben. She has been mad at him for plenty of things, but this isn't his fault. She knows it's not fair to take that out on him. 

“Ben,” Her voice is hoarse, she curses how it gives her emotions away. “I’ll sleep on it. I need to find my brother though. I can’t... he’s all I’ve ever had. He deserves to know.” 

Ben nods in agreement and pulls Gwen to him in a bone crushing hug. 

“I’ll help you. I promise.” He mumbles. 

Gwen returns the hug in full force and shoves her face into Ben’s collar. The two cousins stand in the hall for an unknown amount of time. 

They both are crying into each other and are grasping onto one another like a vice. They’ve gotten closer since Gwen’s arrival and in this moment, their bond feels genuine. They both feel like home to one another and they wouldn't trade that for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This was not the original conflict I had planned out for this story. So this story has already changed drastically from the original template I created for it.  
> Also Ben and Gwen trauma bonding??? Ben and Gwen trauma bonding :)))))


	22. The Search For Ken Tennyson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for themes and allusion to suicidal thoughts

Kevin is standing in Gwen’s room staring at the two Tennyson’s in disbelief. One of Kevin’s hands rubs his face as he thinks. 

The two have explained to him what transpired after him and Rook were cast out, but this whole thing seems almost fabricated. 

Gwen and Ben are next to each other and share a similar look of determination. They plan to leave and look for Gwen’s brother, but Kevin feels something gnawing in the back of his brain that this is a bad idea. 

In fact, it’s screaming at him in bright red lights, ‘bad idea’. 

Rook is leaning against the door; he tries to listen for anyone else if they happen to be eavesdropping. Well, he was supposed to be doing that, the conversation happening in the room is engaging him more. Frankly, he’s just as confused about the whole event. He does know that he agrees with Kevin, this is probably a bad idea. Most ideas that involved Ben tended to be if he was being honest. 

“Kevin please, just tell me where you dropped Ken off and we’ll go from there.” Gwen pleads. 

The room is silent after Gwen says that. Gwen’s eyes are bulging as if she shouldn’t have said that. Kevin’s shoulders are hunched up as he curls into himself a little. Ben and Rook share a look of confusion. 

“Excuse me, but what are you referring to?” Rook asks Gwen.

Gwen and Kevin bodies are rigid. They were never truthful about how Gwen truly ended up here in the castle. In fact, the two were forgetful that they had even lied about the situation to begin with. Kevin told them Gwen broke in, he had just left out the parts about Ken. Which at this moment were quite important. 

Kevin looks over at Gwen, he sees how important this is to her. Her eyes are rimmed red from crying all night, he can see it. He also knows he’s partially to blame for the scenario the group is in right now. 

He takes a deep breath and find himself looking anywhere but at his friends as he tells the truth, “When you two were at that fair, her brother broke into the castle. He was looking for the fair, but he attacked me when he saw me... Not that I can really blame him.” Kevin explains to them and looks down at his own form. 

“Argit used one of his quills to subdue him and I locked him in the dungeons. My plan was to wait for you guys to get back before making any decisions on how to handle him.”

“Well that obviously didn’t happen!” Ben says exasperated and gestures his hands to Gwen. 

Kevin nods, “Gwen showed up looking for him. She offered herself as a replacement, saying that she knew magic and could be useful. So, I agreed to it, without thought really, I just-” Kevin was cut off.

“Magic was the only thing we hadn’t tried.” Ben says quietly, finishing for him. Kevin was gravely silent and just nodded. 

“Kevin, you cannot just let him go without any protocol! Who knows where he went or what he is claiming to have seen here!” Rook’s voice cuts in an almost panicked tone.

Before Kevin can open his mouth Ben chimes in, “Kevin I can’t believe you would do something that selfish! She’s been here for over a month who knows where he could be?!”

“What if he has found the Forever Knights?” Rook adds on.

“Kevin, he could be outing you to the whole kingdom!” Ben’s voice is in disbelief. 

Rook and Ben start babbling on but it’s all mush to Kevin’s ears now. It feels like an ocean has swallowed him whole, everyone sounds distant. 

He knows he’s not underwater, but he wishes he was. He felt like he was drowning, his lungs burning to scream. At least drowning had and ending he thought bitterly. What he was feeling now goes on and on with no end in sight. He knows too well how this ends for him. 

He can’t hear the gargled noises of their voices anymore, just the overwhelming sensation of knowing his mistakes. He’s messed up again. He’ll never stop being selfish, it’s all he knows how to be. He’s crumbling under the weight of his own self-doubt. 

He bargained with Gwen to help him, but now he’s caused her a mountain of more problems. She’ll never forgive him. He’s ruined everything. He always ruins everything. 

He knew Ben and Rook would be mad, why wouldn’t they be? They have every right to. He’s probably lost any trust Ben had left in him. He shouldn’t have come back; he just knows how to make things worse. He only knows how to destroy things and people. That’s what he’s always been good at. 

No one would miss him if he just never had come back, he should have died underground, then none of this would be happening right now. 

“Kevin, hey, look at me.” 

Kevin feels Gwen before he sees or hears her. He can feel her soft gentle hands on his face. He knows it’s Gwen because no one touches him and definitely no one softly holds him like he could break. Only Gwen does. Gwen treats him like glass sometimes, it would make him laugh if his mind wasn't screaming at him.

“Kevin, I know you’re in your head right now, but I need you here. Nod to me if you understand that.” 

Kevin can see her green eyes staring at him, her expression is soft but firm. He nods to her, letting her know he’s present again, well, somewhat present. 

He still feels just as overwhelmed by his own self-hatred, but he can push it back enough to focus on her. 

“Listen, I know it’s easy to get stuck in your head, but this isn’t about shifting blame right now. It’s about finding my brother. I really need you, okay?” Gwen tells him.

Kevin shakes himself out of his episode, he still feels it in the back of his brain, but it’s a dull scratch and not howling at him anymore.

He looks away from Gwen and sees Ben and Rook staring at him with a twinge of regret clouding their own faces. 

He curses at himself for disassociating in front of everyone, but he can’t think about it for too long, or he’ll go back into another.

“Sorry.” He mumbles and looks back down at Gwen. She’s staring intently at him, still holding onto his face gently. She’s searching his face for something; he doesn’t really know. She finds whatever she’s looking for though, because she let’s go of him and turns to Ben and Rook.

He immediately misses her warmth. 

“We can’t undo what’s already happened,” Gwen’s words hang heavy for everyone in the room. “We can try to fix our own mistakes though.” she says softly. 

The room is silent as everyone looks at one another. They all feel a little lost and hurt. Battered and bruised from their own years leading up to this moment together.

“Where do we start?” Ben asks and looks at his friends.

“We have to find Ken first.” Gwen states. Everyone nods in agreement. 

“You two can’t go out though. Not after Morningstar’s disappearance... Who knows what the Forever Knights are planning.” Rook explains it to them. “We have to send someone else, someone who is good at finding out information.”

“Okay, but who can we trust to do that why we wait here?” Ben asks, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Kevin smirks and looks at his friends, “We send a rat. What else knows a way around dark corners and digs around for scraps?” 

“Argit? You want to send out Argit to do this? Can we even trust him?” Rook asks Kevin, his tone hesitant. 

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Kevin pulls open Gwen’s door and Argit barrels in, forcefully he falls over into the room. His opossum face smashes into the floor.

“Gah! Ouch! Kev what was that for?!” Argit demands as he rolls over and sits up clutching his nose. “It’s not broken is it?” 

“It’s still ugly as ever Argit, don’t worry.” Ben replies and rolls his eyes. “Were you listening to us this whole time?” he demands. 

“Maybe I was, what are you gonna do about it Tennyson?” Argit bites out aggressively. 

“Argit cut it out, we need a favor.” Kevin says to him.

“Oh yeah? And what’s in it for me huh? I’ve got no business dealin with whatever weird family drama the Tennyson’s have going on.” Argit hisses at them. 

“We will clear your criminal record.” Rook chimes in, smirking at the rodent. 

“What?!” Kevin and Ben exclaimed. 

“Rook don’t you think-” Ben starts but Rook holds his hand up to stop him. 

Argit’s face is perked up at this, a crooked smile comes over his face. “You’ll clear out my record from the system? Really?” he asks Rook, cocking his head to the side and eyeing him suspiciously. 

“I would put my Plumbers badge on it.” Rook states keeping direct eye contact with Argit. 

“You got a deal Rook my boy!” Argit shots himself up off the floor. 

“So, I hear you’re looking for that bean pole of a brother that was here right? The nerdy one with matching hair like yours Red?” He scurries up to Gwen and looks her up and down. 

“Uh, yeah.” She agrees with him, hoping it would make him stop looking at her like that. 

“I remember him, I’ll see what I can dig up.” He states and rushes out of the room. 

The group left behind all feel a little winded after the encounter. 

“So, I guess we wait?” Ben asks, still confused.

“No,” Gwen says looking at everyone. “waiting gets us nowhere. We have to do our own work.” she says softly. 

They all nod in agreement. 

Ben and Rook walk out of Gwen’s room together, mumbling about getting dinner and probably going to bed after. 

Kevin goes to leave too, but Gwen stops him for a moment. 

“Does that happen often?” she asks him, her voice doesn’t rise above a whisper.

“Not usually around other people.” he says truthfully. 

She nods in understanding, “I used to do that a lot too. It would help me if someone held me to ground me. At least Ken would do that. Sorry if it was weird, I just, I know what it’s like,” she pauses and gestures to herself, “to be stuck in your own head you know?”

Kevin’s silent for a moment before he responds to her, his tone attempting to be just as soft as hers, “No, it helped me actually. Thanks.” Kevin replies, avoiding Gwen’s intense gaze. 

The two stand in an awkward silence, Kevin finally starts to move towards the door again. 

Kevin shuts the door quietly behind him and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His face feels warm, and his stomach is twisting in a knot. The overwhelming sensation of dread from earlier is gone for now. The dull thud of it is forgotten in the back of his brain until the next time he ponders too long on it. 

He’s not fixed, he’s not better, he’s still a mutated mess of a man who can’t quite grasp his own emotional intelligence, but he thinks he can one day. This was the first time, in a very long time, Kevin felt like he was capable of change.


	23. Fighting is a Love Language

Gwen's body is aching as she slides across the field away from Kevin. 

She’s been fighting with Kevin for the past hour, and she’s in her head. She can’t think straight, and she’s been missing all her shots she’s thrown at him. She’s even fumbled one of her spells that she knows inside and out. 

Kevin isn’t keeping a usual banter with her either, he’s unusually quiet today. 

He’s also going easy on her and it’s pissing her off. He’s barely gotten close to her and has only thrown long range attacks. He’s acting like she’ll break and it’s frustrating her to no end. It’s the only time he’s held back when fighting and she’s growing more agitated as they continue. 

She just needs one good hit and she’ll feel good about today. That’s all she needs. She can do this on her own. She doesn’t need a teacher and she can prove it. 

She shakes her head and tries to clear her mind. The last thing she wants to think about right now is Verdona. Her brain feels muddy and she thinks she feels a migraine clustering in there too. She’s unsure about a lot of things right now and it reads on her face. 

She rubs the sweat from her brow and hunches over herself, she's taking quick breaths, almost hyperventilating. 

She can do this; she doesn’t need help. 

“Gwen, really we can stop, you’re not focused at all.” Kevin shouts at her from where he is. He’s making a sour face at her, but she doesn’t care right now. 

“No! I’m fine, I wanna keep going.” She slurs out and starts a barrage of her mana projectiles toward him. 

Kevin easily dodges the blue spheres that are sent towards him. He’s not even sending attacks her way anymore. 

“What are you trying to prove? You’re exhausted!” He shouts at her. His jaw is tight and he’s trying to hold back what he really wants to say to her. She knows she’s making him angry, but she doesn’t care right now. 

It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. 

She just wants to fight on an equal playing field right now. She wants to be treated like a threat. 

“I said I’m fine! I’m not stopping until I hit you or you knock me down Kevin. So, fight me!” She screams at him, her voice breaks and she slams her hands to the ground. 

“ _Terra_ _cavo_ _”_ she whispers and her mana shoots into the ground aiming for Kevin. 

A sink hole appears but Kevin uses his Kineceleran speed to dodge and runs towards Gwen. 

She doesn’t have any time to put up a shield or dodge before Kevin’s on top of her and tackles her down. 

He pins her down using his Vulpimancer arms to hold Gwen’s wrist to the ground. He uses his Pyronite and Petrosapien arms to bear his weight above Gwen and he boxes her body under him. 

She tries to pry herself out of his grip, but she’s worn down and weak. She tries to focus her mana into her hands, but they just flicker blue quickly before fizzling out. She continues to writhe for a couple more minutes before she finally sinks her weight into the ground under her. 

“I told you we should stop. What’s your problem today?” Kevin asks her, his voice is firm as he looks down at her. 

Gwen’s head is turned to the side avoiding his gaze as she stares out at the empty field. 

“You’re my problem... you weren’t treating me as an equal today!” She states and starts trying to squirm out of his grip again. 

Kevin sighs before responding to her, “I don’t think I’m the problem at all. You’ve been in your head this whole time.” Gwen’s body freezes and she continues to avoid his eyes. 

“Seriously, you’re avoiding my questions. I can stay like this all day; I’m not even trying hard to hold you here.” He tells her in a clipped tone. She’s starting to get under his skin and he’s not leaving until she tells him what’s up. 

Gwen feels her anger bubbling over, and she just wants to shout and scream until her lungs collapse. 

Gwen’s silent for a while and she squeezes her eyes shut. She just wants to fade into the ground and be swallowed up. She hates that Kevin knows somethings wrong. She hates that she feels so vulnerable right now. What she loathes the most is how much she wants the reassurance from Kevin. She shouldn’t need it, but she _wants_ it. 

Minutes go by, and Kevin still holds her wrists to the dirt under them. She knows he’s serious when he claims he can sit here all day waiting for her, so she takes a deep breath to calm herself and come down from her adrenaline high. 

“Verdona wanted to talk to me today.” She mutters out quietly. 

She finally looks at Kevin, and his face is scrunched up in confusion. 

She averts her eyes away again and realizes she has to elaborate for him. 

“She wanted to train with me today, and I don’t...” she pauses trying to find the right words. “I don’t want to rely on her or Max for anything right now!” she whispers out in a broken voice. 

“They lied about so much, not just to me but to Ben too and I-” her voice breaks off as she looks up at Kevin, her face crumpling under the weight of her own mixed emotions. “I don’t know if I want to forgive them...” 

Kevin’s quiet for a minute as he tries to process what Gwen’s saying before he finally responds to her. 

“You know, you told us the other day that we can’t change the past, that we have to move forward. Doesn’t that include them too?” he asks her genuinely. 

Gwen scoffs at that and rolls her eyes at him, “That’s different-” she starts but Kevin interrupts her. 

“No, it isn’t Gwen. You don’t get to tell us something like that and be a hypocrite when our backs are turned.” He tells her, irritation crossing his face. 

Gwen’s face is flushed with embarrassment and her jaw is clenched. 

Kevin sighs and sits up, letting go of Gwen. “I’m not saying you have to forgive them.” 

Gwen slowly sits up, her body aching from over exertion. She curls her legs up and presses her forehead to her knees. She’s trying to not explode her emotional baggage all over Kevin. Her shoulders are hunched as she clings to her own body, trying to appear smaller. 

She feels Kevin’s hand, she thinks it’s one of his Vulpimancer arms, pressing down softly and smooths her hair back. It’s gentle and comforting. 

“I’m just saying, you should give them a chance at earning forgiveness.” Kevin mutters to her. 

Silence comes over the two as they sit in the open field. Gwen thinks about what Kevin has said and she knows he’s right. 

She should at least talk to Verdona. It’s not fair of her to make everyone else ask and atone for their past mistakes and not listen to the ones asking the same of her. She knows she’s wrong. She’s just too stubborn to want to admit it. 

She’s had her fair share of secrets as well; she hid her magic from Ken. The omission of truth was lying, and she knew that. 

Maybe all the Tennyson’s were wrong about one thing or another. 

She pulls her head up and rests on top of her knees and stares at Kevin. He’s sitting on the ground with her, just acting as a comforting presence. He’s giving her the space the think and process her own emotions. 

“Thank you.” She says quietly looking fondly at her companion. 

Kevin’s eyes lazily look at her, “Yeah, you’re not the only one who can give good advice.” He smirks at her. 

“Okay okay, I get it.” She stands up and smooths out her clothes and rubs the dirt off. “Sorry for taking my anger out on you...” she says seriously looking directly at him, shame covers her face. “That wasn’t fair of me.” 

Kevin stands next to her and shrugs his shoulders, “It’s fine. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done it before.” 

Kevin stretches his body, cracking his back, “I just usually take it out on Ben.” He says jokingly, smiling down at Gwen. 

Gwen laughs softly at this. “C’mon, let’s grab some lunch. I wasted all my energy today.” Gwen says and covers her mouth as she yawns. 

Kevin starts walking beside her, “I think I’ll see what Ben’s up to after, I’m itching to fight him all of a sudden.” Kevin jokes. 

Gwen laughs at him again and smacks his arm light, “Is that your weird love language or something?” She continues to laugh but Kevin only slightly chuckles alongside her. 

His face is burning and if his skin wasn’t already red Gwen would notice. Kevin mutters out something about just enjoying a good fight and Gwen just hums in acknowledgement. 

She knows she needs to talk to Verdona. She can't do it today. Tomorrow is a new day, and she can navigate it then. She looks up at Kevin from the corner of her eye and smiles. She’s content for now.


	24. Nightmares

Ben’s fine. Really, he is absolutely positively fine. 

He just occasionally has dreams of his friends abandoning him. Or maybe that makes them nightmares? He isn’t really sure. He doesn’t like to think of them too much. 

Maybe accidentally mutating his best friend when he was ten doesn’t leave the cleanest slate in his brain. Or his conscience. He doesn’t know. He tries not to think about it. Ben tries very hard to not imagine what their lives would be like if Kevin hadn’t ever mutated. He doesn’t always succeed. 

Today had been one of those days. He’s watching Gwen and Kevin bicker over something mundane; he thinks it’s about books but he’s not really listening. As he watches them his brain wanders, a skill he’s gotten very good at suppressing, but he can’t stop it today. He can’t help but imagine what Kevin would look like as his normal self, sitting there with Gwen. He tries hard to imagine what Kevin would look like at twenty-one and not eleven. He thinks Kevin would be very handsome and probably more upfront with how he feels towards Gwen. 

Ben can see it, he isn’t blind. He likes to act like he doesn’t notice sometimes and ruin moments between the two of them. He can see it plain as day. He’s already made bets with Rook on when they’ll figure it out themselves. Maybe that’s why his stomach sinks as he tries to imagine Kevin being normal and flirting with Gwen easily. 

Rook nudges him with his elbow and brings him back down from his brain. 

“You are thinking too hard again. I can almost hear your brain.” Rook whispers to him. 

Ben’s face molds itself into fake joy and responds to Rook easily, “Just imagining how I’ll ruin their weird moment Rook.” 

Rook gives him a side glance that’s skeptical at best and accusing at worst. He doesn’t push Ben on the topic and focuses back on Gwen and Kevin. 

Ben doesn’t like to think about what-ifs. Not because he doesn’t see a point in fantasizing about what could have been, but the after math in his brain when he does it. 

When Ben does think about what-ifs, his brain doubles over in payback. That’s when he’ll dream about his friends leaving him, one way or another. All of them will. It almost reinforces the inevitable for him. He knows what they have right now, isn’t forever. It can’t be and he knows that. His biggest fear is when they all eventually separate, it will be his fault. 

It’s happened before, so why wouldn’t it happen again?

Occasionally he gets one that isn’t a dream, but a memory. A really twisted version of it, but a memory, nonetheless.

Sometimes Ben dreams about the day of the coronation. It’s always a version of the coronation that eats away at his worst fears. He dreams of Kevin grabbing onto him and mutating. 

He hears Kevin’s bones snapping and breaking to reform into something that he isn’t. He hears the echoes of the screams of an eleven-year-old boy. He sees his best friends body contort and disfigures itself in such a grotesque way, Ben wonders if that is truly how it happened. He’s had the dream so many times, he doesn’t know if he remembers how it really happened anymore. 

He tries to stop it, every time he fails. Kevin yells at him in various ways depending on how Ben tries to stop him. Ben never succeeds, and Kevin always blames Ben. 

In one of the various times he's dreamed this, Kevin screamed and cried as he mutated and cried out for Ben. Howling for him to stop it, if he really was his friend, he’d stop him from mutating. That one left him in a cold sweat when he woke up. 

They all end up the same. Kevin runs away, from his kingdom and from Ben. 

So, it doesn’t surprise Ben when he wakes up in a cold sweat that night in a foggy haze from another nightmare of Kevin’s coronation. He’s been having them more lately since Gwen arrived. 

Ben knows it’s because his everyday life has changed with the new presence of Gwen. Someone who he’s also grown very attached too. When Ben sees Kevin and Gwen together, he can’t help but think about if things were different. 

He knows, in theory, that if Kevin was normal, Gwen probably wouldn’t even be here with them. There would be no reason for her to be in the castle. 

That doesn’t stop Ben’s brain from running marathons in his own head. He always lands on feeling guilty and being the sole contributor to Kevin’s condition. So, his brain works those fears out in his nightmares.

The only difference in the past few years is the presence of Rook. 

So, when Ben wakes up, screaming sometimes, Rook is next to him. Rook wasn’t just his partner as a Plumber but in life. Ben doesn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have Rook. In fact, he doesn’t know how he had ever functioned without him. 

Ben’s only told Rook about the nightmares because he was forced to. After the first week they started sharing a bed he had a nasty one. Rook shook him awake, confused and concerned. He wouldn’t let Ben drop the subject because apparently when Ben has these nightmares, his cries of pain are worse than anything Rook has heard when they’ve been in battles. 

Ben finds it ironic that he can fight intergalactic criminals and war lords all day, but his own abandonment issues are what scares him the most. 

Ben now finds comfort in Rook easily when he has these nightmares. Rook shuffles Ben under his arms and swaddles him into his warmth. Rubbing his back and presses soft kisses to his brow. It lulls Ben nicely into a much deeper sleep, one that is dreamless. 

When Ben wakes up that night, Rook falls into the routine easily. Knowing how to bring Ben down from his stress induced nightmare. 

Rook doesn’t push Ben, but he has mentioned that maybe he should talk to Kevin about how he feels.

Ben pushes back against that idea, he knows Kevin doesn’t like to talk about it, and frankly Ben doesn’t either. He also doesn’t want to hear Kevin tell Ben it really was his fault. Ben can navigate that guilt on his own. He has for the past decade and he’s fine.

He isn’t going to cry to his best friend about his own guilt, that doesn’t seem fair. He’ll work through it alone. He won’t mention that there’s a constant fear of Kevin abandoning him. He doesn’t need to put that pressure on anyone. It’s his problem to deal with. So what if he has more sleepless nights than most? He can manage.

That’s how he’s always managed. He knows how to navigate his brain. He deflects easily, that’s why he’s so boisterous. If he  fakes it, he can avoid the nagging feeling in the back of his brain for long enough. It works on most days, and he even feels true happiness when he lets his guard down.

Really, he’s fine.

He just occasionally has nightmares. 

He’s fine.

He’ll grit his teeth, fake his smiles, and one day it won’t hurt to see Kevin. One day he won’t be afraid of Kevin, or anyone else leaving him. 

Or he’ll end up alone and crumble under the weight of everyone who’s left him.

Ben pushes himself into Rook, he can’t turn off his brain tonight. Rook sits up and brings Ben’s body with him. 

Ben sits on their bed and curls into himself. His arms wrap tightly around his legs and he presses his head into his knees. He feels his shoulder shake  from the sobs that wrack through his body. 

Rook doesn’t say anything, just rubs Ben’s back and sits next to him. He knows that Rook tries  his best to help him. Sometimes Ben wonders why Rook even bothers with him. That’s another anxiety induced spiral he can’t go into tonight. He just tries to accept that Rook loves him  unconditionally . 

Rook stays up with him until he stops crying and can actually talk through his emotions. 

When Ben finally looks up at Rook, he knows his eyes are burning, red rimmed, and the bags under his eyes probably have grown darker. 

Rook just smiles at him and hold his face gently. Waiting for Ben to tell him what’s wrong. 

Ben thanks whatever controls the universe that he has Rook and he relaxes into his partner. 

He’ll be okay. He’s fine. 

Ben just has nightmares sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing just about Ben's perspective today. I think the series does a disservice to the characters sometimes. I think there is so much to unpack with them and what transpires just between their group.   
> Anyway, I enjoyed unpacking how Ben sees his own relationships.


	25. Garden of Mana

The library isn’t a quiet place, ironically enough. Since Gwen’s gained access to it she’s found that she’s never alone and it can be livelier than she anticipated.

Most of that has been due to the presence of Verdona.

It was pretty easy for Verdona to figure out that’s where Gwen’s been hiding herself away. All of the magical texts and artifacts were here, so obviously Gwen would be too. She was predictable in that sense.

Gwen ‘s decided to try and let Verdona teach her, but the woman’s mad. She’s spent the first day with Gwen trying to convince her to run off back to Anodine with her and to train there. Gwen obviously gave that a hard pass, reminding Verdona that she was still furious at her.

Verdona just shrugged at that and complained about Gwen not understanding the true joys of being an anodite. She mentioned in passing about Gwen’s fleshy body holding her back but Gwen chose to ignore the comment instead of thinking too hard about it.

Gwen doesn’t always remember her grandma being this way. She also doesn’t remember a lot about her. She’s going off small memories from when she was between five and nine.

Verdona was always so distant when Gwen was a child. She’d come and go as she pleased, and never got along with Gwen’s mother. Verdona sometimes would let Gwen run errands with her, but that didn’t last long either. Gwen’s mom hated to leave her alone with Grandma Verdona.

Now that Gwen thinks about it, maybe it wasn’t Verdona’s fault she was so distant.

Whatever the case, Verdona is causing a scene in the library. She’s practically throwing all of the textbooks she deems useful on the table in front of Gwen and flies about the room as she does so.

Once she gathers everything she deems important she slams her hands down on the table where Gwen sits making fierce eye contact. She looks so determined. 

Gwen can feel the irritation budding inside of her.

“Okay kid, where should we start? Oh! I know what about showing me how you manifest your mana first? What spells can you do?” Verdona starts listing off different questions and rambling. Her mouth flies a mile a minute, Gwen can hardly keep up.

“Grandma Verdona please, one question at a time!” Gwen says holding her hand up to pause the woman.

Verdona moves her body like a nymph. She’s fluid and graceful even when she’s not trying. Even when she’s irritated or frustrated, her movements are delicate.

When Verdona crosses her arms and pouts at Gwen for interrupting her flow, Gwen can’t help but be enthralled by the woman. Even how her hair follows her movements seems unreal.

Gwen remember thinking her grandmother’s hair was really made up of silver and stardust as a child. As she looks at her now, maybe she wasn’t wrong.

“Gwen if you want to learn, I need to know where you are.” Verdona tells her sternly.

Gwen nods to her, “Well, I think I have a pretty solid handling on manifesting my mana physically.” Gwen demonstrates by sending out a small blue ray of mana to her grandmother’s cloak hood and flipping it up over her head.

Verdona laughs softly and shakes her head causing her hood to fall back down.

“What else can do you?” she asks Gwen.

Gwen stands and shows how she can place shields as well as her projectiles for when she fights. In stead of throwing them as an attack she throws it around in her hands like a ball.

Verdona’s eyes are sharp as she assesses Gwen’s abilities. She’s smiling to herself as she watches Gwen play with her own powers.

There is something beautiful about seeing Gwen look so in tune with herself as she uses her mana so carefree.

When Gwen uses her mana and casts spells, creating new things out of thin air, she feels more like herself than ever. She can’t help it, she’s always tried to hide this aspect of herself away, even from her brother.

Knowing that she’s meant to do this, knowing that she was born like this. It changes everything for her.

It only slight ebbs away the anger that has nestled in her heart toward her grandma.

“That is excellent control. What about spells? How many of those have you tried?” Verdona cocks her head to the side as she questions Gwen.

Gwen holds her chin as she ponders this. She hasn’t really explored that many. It takes her so many tries to successfully preform a spell.

“Well, I can do really simple tasks, like creating light as well as bringing objects to me, but I only know a few larger spells.” She tells her honestly.

“I created a sink hole fairly recently, which I was very impressed with!” She states happily.

“We’ll start from the ground up then. You need a stronger foundation of what your mana can do. Do you know what mana is Gwen?” Verdona asks, she’s grabbing a hold of Gwen’s wrist and is guiding her out of the library.

“Uh, I mean mana is energy, right?” Gwen questions.

Verdona goes through the back of the library, using a door Gwen didn’t remember being there. To be fair Gwen hasn’t explored much of this library, but she thinks she would remember a purely purple door. Verdona pulls Gwen outside into a small courtyard. Well, what looks like it used to be a courtyard.

The space out here is surrounded by other walls of the castle. It feels like a small window into a different world. The courtyard used to be a garden, from what Gwen can assess.

“Yes! Mana is energy, me and you are made up of the stuff.” Verdona says and points to herself then to Gwen.

Gwen’s eyes can’t focus, she’s looking at everything around her. There is an overgrown table and chair that sit further toward the back. They’re made from iron and the ivy is moving through them and wrapping around.

The plants that are still in the garden are growing wildly or are dead altogether. She sees where the wildflowers and weeds have taken control of the ground. It reaches up to Gwen’s shins and the grass tickles at her skin as it blows from the wind.

The little table and chair sit under a wisteria tree, almost creating its own intimate space amongst the greenery.

Ivy runs up the walls of the castle and seems to be blocking some of the windows that could over see the garden. Gwen wonders if that’s why she’s never seen this space.

Her thoughts are interrupted by her grandma’s voice, “Everything here has mana attached to it, even the smallest blades of grass.” Verdona uses her own powers and pulls the small orbs of mana up and out of the blades of grass.

She does it so flawlessly, she flicks her hand and Gwen is swimming in a sea of pinks and purples. The weird small orbs of mana are pushing and pulling in the air around them. It makes Gwen’s eyes sparkle as she reaches her hands out to touch.

The small garden shines a bright pink, and as quick as Verdona pulls the mana out, she puts it back as it was.

The garden seems duller now, but Gwen knows that isn’t true. She just saw how much life was here.

Verdona walks over to one of the discarded flower pots that looks like it’s seen much better days. She picks it up gently and glides over to Gwen.

“Heal this plant, revive it with your mana.” She says simply holding the pot in front of Gwen.

Gwen blinks in confusion at her grandmother, “I can’t do that?” she says it like it’s a question.

Verdona stares Gwen down intensely, “Yes you can. It is one of the easiest exercises a baby anodite can do it. Revive this plant.” Verdona says firmly pushing the terracotta pot into Gwen’s hands.

Gwen fumbles it in her hands for a minute before tightening her grip. She glares at the small pot in her hand. She tries to feel for its mana, but she can’t find anything. It’s dead.

Gwen holds one of her hands shakily over the plant and tries to push her own energy into it. Nothing happens. Gwen can’t manipulate her energy into anything that isn’t physical.

She tries again, squeezes her eyes shut and tries to focus her stirring mana that’s inside her.

It won’t move like how she wants it to, its stagnant.

Gwen’s frustrated and looks back up at Verdona in confusion.

“I can’t do it.” She pouts and her grip on the small pot hardens.

“Yes, you can. You’re just doing it wrong.” Her grandmother scoffs at her as if she should know what she’s doing is wrong.

“So how do you do it then?!” Gwen exclaims in frustration. “You’re my teacher, aren’t you suppose to teach me?”

Verdona starts walking back towards the door they came in, seemingly ignoring Gwen.

“Grandma Verdona!” Gwen turns her body and starts following her grandmother, still clutching the pot in confusion.

Verdona turns to her, with a glimmer in her eyes like she knows a secret Gwen doesn’t, “If you can bring that plant life again, without my help, I’ll teach what I know. I’ll help you train to fight as well as heal. But if you can’t figure out how to give your own energy to others,” she pauses pointing at the small pot, “then I cannot teach you. You can’t be something like an anodite Gwendolyn and keep all that energy to yourself.”

She turns around again walking away from her, “People and aliens alike are not meant to hold onto energy from places beyond our existence and not return it to the world. If a baby can figure that out surely you can too.” She waves goodbye and flitters out of the courtyard.

Gwen stares down at the plant in her hands in confusion.

How is she suppose to expel her mana into other living things? She knows it’s possible, Morningstar stole her own energy to feed himself. She just doesn’t understand how to freely give her own energy.

Gwen does what she knows, and goes back into the library and starts looking through the books her grandmother pilled on the table. There had to be something in there, if a baby could do it so can she. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go with Grandma Verdona! She's a little unorthodox but I feel like most anodites probably are.  
> Anyway I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far. I've been making art for this on the side on my tumblr page.  
> jhilsara.tumblr.com if you're interested  
> I also have no idea how long this story will be, it keeps evolving from what I originally planned so I'm excited to see where it ends in comparison to where I thought it would end.   
> ANYWAY- let me know what you think and thank you so much for reading!


	26. Undertown

Kevin walks into his office to escape from the chatter of other people for a minute. He’s having one of those days where everyone is getting on his last nerve. He almost punched through Manny a couple minutes ago. He would not shut up. It's not Manny's fault, or anyone else for that matter. Kevin just needs space. He’s learned over the past few years to just exile himself away when he gets like this. There’s a stack of paper work on his desk that needs to be addressed anyway.

Kevin opens the door to his study and lets out a heavy sigh, he’s finally alone. Well, he thought he was alone.

There is a dead potted plant sitting on Kevin’s desk and a small red headed girl glaring at the thing like it offended her personally. Gwen sits in one of the few chairs and is leaning forward, her head resting in her hands as she glares are the plant.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asks her and he comes around and sits behind his desk. He thinks that the paperwork sitting there will not get done today. In fact, most days that involved Gwen meant his work wasn't getting done. 

“Verdona wants me to bring this plant back to life…” Gwen says, her eyes never leaving the plant.

“Okay…? So why are you in here?” he presses her. Kevin leans back into his chair and readjusts his various limbs to be comfortable.

Gwen finally breaks her staring contest with her plant to look up at Kevin, “Verdona finally figured out I hide in the library, and she’s been breathing down my neck since she told me to do this, I thought you weren’t in here today.” She shrugs her shoulders and replies as if she was asked about the weather. She acts as if Kevin was interrupting her alone time.

“You do know this is _my_ office, right?” Kevin’s voice is pitched in a humorous tone as he looks at the her. Her body is hunched over and she’s gone back to being mad at the potted plant. She’s staring at it like it holds some secret.

Kevin wants to laugh at her, she looks ridiculous.

“Yes Kevin, I am well aware this is your space. I just thought you were doing your rounds today. My room was off limits, she would find me there too.” Gwen closes her eyes and sags her body into the chair she’s sitting at and lets out a long groan.

Her hands pull her face down and she presses the palms of her hands into her eye.

“I don’t know how to do what she wants!” Gwen’s frustrated and she slumps into herself.

Kevin’s noticed that Gwen can be really childish when she doesn’t grasp something easily. He thinks its oddly endearing. She rivals Ben in that department, because Kevin knows just how easily Ben can be goaded into that behavior.

Kevin just finds it cute when Gwen does it and annoying at best when Ben does.

“So, you’ve just been glaring at the plant this whole time?” Kevin is trying to hold in his laughter right now. He’s forgotten all about his earlier irritation and is now hyper focused on Gwen’s dilemma.

She looks at him and puffs her cheeks in irritation. “No! I’m just- oh I don’t know what I’m doing!” she huffs out.

“She wants me to use my mana to bring this back to life, but I don’t know how to do that. None of the books were helpful either. I’ve tried feeling for its mana but nothing. It’s dead.” She says softly as she picks the terra cotta pot up off Kevin’s desk.

She looks sadly at it and places it in her lap, “Apparently even baby anodites can do it. So why can’t I?” she ponders out loud.

Kevin looks at her and cocks his head in thought. He doesn’t understand why Gwen’s so upset about this plant but he knows it is important to her.

“If babies can do it, then it won’t be in any book. Have you ever experimented with your powers outside of textbook spells?” he asks her.

She looks up at him confused, “No not really… I just assumed you needed spells to do anything.” She replies.

Kevin nods his head at her, “What I know about anodites, which isn’t a lot, is that they are very carefree. Verdona is a prime example of that.”

Gwen’s face is deadpan as she stares at him, “Okay and? What does that even mean?”

Kevin rolls his eyes at her and points at her, “You don’t have a carefree bone in your body.”

Gwen’s face flushes and her body prickles at Kevin’s bluntness.

“Excuse you! I happen to be very carefree!” she practically shouts at him.

Kevin scoffs at her and leans back in his chair, “Oh yeah? When was the last time you broke any rules? When was the last time you did something for yourself that didn’t involve studying?” Kevin questions her.

Gwen’s face scrunches as she thinks about her life. She sits like that, in deep thought, for at least five minutes. Her face falls when she realizes she can’t come up with anything.

“I haven’t.” she whispers. She clutches the small plant in her hands tightly.

“Okay then, I have a plan.” Kevin says smirking at her.

He stands up and gently grabs the potted plant from Gwen’s hands and places it on his desk. He pulls Gwen up and out of the chair and starts leading her off.

“We’re gonna play hooky today.” He smiles at her from the side of his mouth.

“What?” Gwen just lets Kevin drag her off to who knows where. He takes her into a hallway she’s never seen before.

“You know, we’re taking a break today. C’mon we’re going somewhere I’m sure you’ve never seen.” Kevin leads Gwen to a back room, that is so small its debatable how Kevin’s large body can even fit into the room.

He pulls Gwen into the small room gently and pushes her to the back wall. He closes the door then hunches over the floor. Gwen’s looking at him in confusion as he slides a trap door open from the floor.

“What is that?” she questions as she tries to see past Kevin’s body into the hole.

“This,” Kevin says and starts crawling through the door, “is where I used to run away to when everything was too much.” His body disappears into the darkness and Gwen fumbles over her own feet to the trap door.

She sees Kevin hold one of his hands out for her to grip onto. Kevin feels her hesitant hand grip his firmly and he tugs her gently down into the underground.

Gwen can’t really see beyond what Kevin’s Pyronite arm lights in front of them. She thinks it’s a tunnel.

Kevin’s still holding onto her hand and he softly pulls her along. He uses his Pyronite powers to hold a small ball of fire in his hands, it lights up the tunnel and they can see beyond their feet.

Kevin feels Gwen’s grip tighten as she follows behind him.

“Where are we?” she ponders out loud.

“This is the main tunnel that connects the palace to Undertown. I found it by accident after I ran away.” Kevin says and continues down the dirt path under their feet.

After almost a half hour of walking, they get closer to an opening that looks like a cave, but it’s much bigger than that.

Gwen comes out the other end of the tunnel with Kevin and sees a full city underneath the earth.

She looks around her in awe, she’s never seen something like this.

Homes and small buildings that could have been businesses go on farther than Gwen can see. There are some dirt and gravel roads that connect, but most of them have faded with time. The building looks nothing like anything Gwen’s seen before. The homes are all made from the stone, clay, and materials of the earth. Most of the homes also share some features of natural metals found from the ground. Some of the homes have intricate and beautiful wooden doors with gold accents.

There is a faint glow along the faded trails and inside the houses from fox fire, a fungus that is thriving everywhere down here.

Gwen looks up and sees ledges that hold homes as well, all of them looking naturally integrated with the earth. The edges of most of the cliffs have clusters of fox fire giving off a blue green haze of light.

Some of the homes near the tops of the underground cliffs connect to roots of trees from above ground. They connect and intertwin into some of the buildings and dig deep into the ground.

There’s so much to look at Gwen’s brain is swimming trying to keep up with everything she sees. This place looks like a fairytale.

Some of the architecture has crumbled down over the years, but most of it is all still structurally sound.

“This place is beautiful.” Gwen says quietly as she still turns trying to look at all of it.

Kevin smiles softly at the woman in front of him. He’s sat himself on a large boulder and is content to see the look of awe that has over taken Gwen’s face.

The furrow in her brow from earlier is gone as she gazes at the world underneath.

Kevin’s happy in his choice to bring her here. She looks relaxed for once. He actually doesn’t think he’s seen her relax for a second since she’s been here. He wonders if she’s always been so high strung.

“Did you live down here?” her voice breaks through Kevin’s thoughts.

His face falters slightly, he’s taken aback by the question. He avoids her eyes, “Um, kind of. If you can call it living…” he mutters.

Gwen comes closer and sits next to him. She leans forwards resting her forearms on her knees. She’s loosely grasping her hands together. She turns her head to look directly at Kevin.

She doesn’t have to say anything for him to know she wants more information. She’s not going to poke and prod him for it though.

He sighs and leans back to put some space between them. Gwen’s so close he can almost feel her warmth radiate off her. It makes him itch, not in a bad way, it’s something he’s not used to feeling. He can probably place it as some kind of admiration but he pushes that thought to very back crevasse of his brain. He isn’t ready to unpack that feeling right now. He looks up at the large cave ceiling seeing stalactites cover the large expanse. They seem much more interesting than his emotions right now.

“I ran away after the coronation. When I say I ran, I mean I left for years. I found a way to Undertown and I just stayed here. I thought I didn’t belong above anymore. I met Argit down here actually.” He tells Gwen still avoiding her burning gaze.

Her eyes are so kind and he can’t look at her when he talks about his past. It’s not pity she holds in her eyes, but sympathy. He doesn’t deserve that. He sometimes wishes she would look at him with scorn, it would be easier if she just hated him. Kevin was used to people hating him.

If she hated him she wouldn’t have let him bring her down here. His brain kindly reminds him of that fact. He pushes that thought away too, he can’t think too hard about it. He’ll torture his own brain with what if scenarios later.

“How long were you down here?” She asks.

Kevin finally looks at Gwen and sees genuine curiosity in her eyes.

“Probably around five years. I was pretty stubborn. Meeting Argit made it easier to survive honestly.” Kevin looks around them taking in the weird abandoned city.

“It used to be crawling with criminals down here. Just petty crimes, like theft or things like that. Aliens who were running from humans or struggling to live. That’s why Argit was here, his family struggled to keep everyone feed.” Kevin says recalling when he first met the opossum like alien.

“It seems pretty empty now.” Gwen says looking around them.

“Yea it should. After I came back I focused on getting everyone out of here and giving them a jumpstart on a new life above ground.” Kevin says chuckling to himself.

Gwen turns her head sharply to look at Kevin who’s lounging behind her. Her face is unreadable to him. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking.

“You’re very different than what I thought you’d be.” She finally says.

Kevin guffaws at that and sits back up and leans into Gwen’s personal space. He’s very close to her face now, he can feel her gasp before he hears it.

“How so?” he questions her.

Gwen meets Kevin’s eyes and swallows hard. His gaze doesn’t falter, waiting for her to respond.

“You’re just, I mean,” she stumbles over her words and takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “I mean that you’re a lot kinder than I originally thought.” She says clearly and looks up at him with a small smile.

“That’s not something many people would describe me as.” Kevin whispers.

“Maybe they just don’t see what I do.” She says truthfully. Gwen moves her hand and places it over one of his.

Its soft and warm and the opposite of what Kevin is. He cold and rough and all sharp edges. They’re complete opposites really. He just can’t help feeling pulled in by Gwen’s gravity.

She’s staring up at him with these sharp green eyes that feel like they catch his every move. She sees him as a person and not as a big mistake, or a monster.

He’s feeling that itch again, but he doesn’t want to pull away. Just once he wants to not push down that bubbling feeling in the pit of his stomach that makes his skin itch and crawl. It scares him a little, he’s afraid he will push her away. Right now, he doesn’t care.

Gwen squeeze his hand tightly; her other hand gently rests against his face. He leans his weight into it. He presses his forehead down to meet hers and closes his eyes.

He’s content. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt this at peace, alone or with another person.

Kevin wonders if Gwen will walk beside him in the future. He’s never really thought about what might happen in his future, he barely thought he had one for a long time.

Gwen makes him want to see a future, he wants her to be in it. Regardless of if he is an amalgamation of aliens.

He can regret how intimate they are right now later, but she’s letting him lean on her. He’s going to embrace that right now. In the dark underground they can be in their own bubble. The outside world doesn’t matter right now. It’s just Kevin and Gwen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YALL ASKED FOR A SLOW BURN RIGHT?!  
> I took two days to sit down and write this because I didn't know where it was going.  
> WEVE LANDED IN DESPERATE PINING TERRITORY SO YA KNOW  
> anyway, this was interesting and I'm very content with this.


	27. Argit Actually Does Something

Argit is a man of many words and few actions. He can run his motor mouth anywhere to anyone and get what he wants. It wasn’t too hard to find out where Ken had run off to after Kevin had dropped the unconscious man near a town inn.

People were too easy for Argit to navigate.

Humans were too trusting, all he had to do was bat his eyes and act like a cute small mammal and they feel for it easily. He could even pitch his voice higher to add to his cutesy act.

Other aliens were harder, many knew of him and his criminal activity, but it was easy to goad them into spilling information. They acted like they couldn’t break, but he knows too much. He’s always been surrounded by the chatter of others. He’s been running cons on the everyday person since he was a brat, it’s second nature to him.

It wasn’t hard for him to find the sweet spots on people to get them talking. He could convince even the most skilled Plumber to tell him information that was classified. That’s why Kevin’s kept him around. That and his weird feeling of personal debt. Argit doesn’t try to understand him, he just knows that Kevin will take care of him for the time being. That’s all Argit really needs. He’s just happy he’s not sleeping underground and feeding five screaming siblings anymore.

What Argit isn’t happy about is all the physical labor he’s had to expel to find Ken Tennyson. He’s already ran halfway through the city and around the outskirts. He’s been gone for three days too long and he’s not excited about being gone longer than one day. He can’t believe this man is hard to find.

For example, right now he’s crawling into a very tight space into the sides of an abandoned storage complex because the front gate was locked.

Argit hasn’t had to crawl anywhere in a long time. Kevin would usually blast things away when he needed somewhere. The last time he had to squeeze his body anywhere was probably when he was much smaller. He’s cursing the palace food and his lack of impulse control right now.

Once he squirms his way into the building, he’s surprised to find that it’s mostly empty. Even for a storage unit there were only a few large industrial sized crates.

Argit’s eyes narrow in on the crates, they look familiar. He looks around cautiously and scrambles down to the nearest one to find any shipping labels or anything to indicate what is in the crates. He’ll pry it open if he has to, but he doesn’t really want to. He’s just curious.

He finds what he’s looking for, the label reads clearly and he realizes it’s one of the stolen Plumbers crates. It’s filled with stolen tech and weapons.

Now he’s suspicious for different reasons.

He is vaguely aware that the Forever Knights are the group stealing from the Plumbers, and Argit is wondering if he’s in the wrong place. The last thing he wants to deal with are Forever Knights. He can’t go back to hiding for the rest of his life. He’s just only escaped from his old life, he doesn’t plan to go back anytime soon.

The shutters to the storage unit start clanging loudly and he realizes someone’s coming inside. Argit shoves his small body against the crate and crouches his body to the ground.

He hears clanging of metal and heavy footsteps. His ears perk as he tries to listen closely.

A voice cuts through the air, deep and stoic, “You’re positive you can utilize this technology? I don’t do well with people who disappoint me.”

There’s another set of footsteps, much softer and less sure. They seem to be rushing behind the other person’s strong stride.

“I’m positive! I’m a quick learner.” The new voice chimes in, he’s rushing over his words like he’s flustered. “I’m an engineer I think I can figure this out! I also have my own reasons to succeed.” The new voice adds on.

Argit pokes his head around the crate he’s hiding behind and tries to see the two people.

One is clearly a Forever Knight, armor and all. He could laugh at them; these men are literally living in the dark ages. The other one he can spot immediately. He doesn’t have to see his face, he knows from the bright red hair. It’s Ken.

Argit pushes his body flush back against the crate. This wasn’t good. At all.

He wanted to curse loudly at this moment, of course Ken found the only set of people who had it out for Kevin. That was their luck.

He can’t grab Ken and bring him back, much less have a civil conversation with him. Not with the Forever Knight lurking next to him. Argit ponders if this is their hideout. It’s so empty he thinks it must just be a meeting place.

“The last person who I thought was promising crawled back to us useless. He got cocky because of his position in the castle. Now he sits with that sorceress hoping she can change anything with her strange magical abilities, as if she can help reverse the damage caused from the castle.” The Knight scoffs as a snide remark.

Argit can piece together he’s talking about Morningstar.

“Please! I know I can do this, I have to help my sister get out of there. She’s trapped and I know she’s being taken advantage of!” Ken cries out, desperately trying to let this man find him useful.

It’s pitiful honestly.

Then the ground starts shaking aggressively, he has to brace himself to not fly out from his hiding spot. His eyes go wide as a bright light starts to filter into the storage unit.

He slowly tries to get a glimpse at what could be happening. His jaw drops immediately.

All he can see is the floor before the two men has opened up to descend down into what could only be the main entrance of their hideout. Argit watches at the Knight lets Ken step forward first.

“Good, I think you’ll get along well with the other rabble. Everyone here has some personal vendetta against that _monster_ who resides in the castle.” The man says with pure disdain in his mouth. His tone could be called venomous.

It prickles at Argit’s skin and quills, they’re standing on edge. Kevin isn’t a monster, he hasn’t done a thing to the Forever Knights. They're just a group of humans who want to fight against progress. Not that Argit particularly cares, but he cares enough about living. 

Argit is a man of few loyalties, but Kevin is one. He’ll never say that out loud, too many chances at people to abuse that. He knows better. He also knows better than to think that Kevin’s a monster, that’s a lie.

Argit watches the two descend into the secret passage and it closes back up behind them.

He waits for another ten minutes before he eases up. He lets out a soft sigh and starts trying to wiggle back to the hole he crawled in from. Nothing about what he just saw could be considered good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argit does something alone or whatever.... yeah


	28. What Makes Her Happy?

Gwen is sitting in the garden with her potted plant. She’s sitting in the chair and her plant is on the iron table. 

She’s trimmed away some of the vines that covered the small iron table and chair, so they were useable. She’s kept some of the vines near the bottom, she finds them cute. She likes how they wrap around the chair and tables legs and she always found wilder gardens to be more beautiful.

She's been sitting outside soaking in the warmth of the sun and sipping from a teacup. She holds the white china in her hands looking down into her dandelion tea. The flowers float above the liquid moving slightly with the breeze. 

She had plucked the weeds from the garden earlier to make the floral tea. She inhales the fresh air deeply and lifts the cup to her lips to drink. 

When she sets it back down, she looks over to the terra cotta pot and takes a deep breath and attempts, once more, to bring her plant back to life. 

It’s been a few days since her afternoon with Kevin and Gwen’s taken a complete break from her plant and studying magic all together. She’s taken those days to listen to Kevin’s advice and do what she wants. She’s spent a couple of days doing anything that brings her happiness that she wants to do in the moment. 

She’s been sleeping in more lately and finally taking naps. She can’t remember the last time she took a nap or even laid down for a break in her usually busy days. Even when she lived with just Ken, Gwen was always running around to keep the house from falling apart.

She’s been dozing off lately in the early afternoon letting the sun warm her skin. She hasn’t done that since she was a child. She usually makes it to her room to nap but the other day, she had passed out completely in Kevin’s study. 

She sat in the chair next to the window reading, listening to Kevin’s ink pen scratching the paper and the quiet sounds of their breathing. She easily fell asleep to the soft white noise. She doesn’t remember falling asleep. She remembers him gently shaking her awake to have dinner. She had been asleep for around two hours, by far the longest nap she had taken in a long time.

She asked Kevin why he let her sleep in his study and he had just shrugged casually at her and said she looked peaceful.

“You’re face finally wasn’t scrunched up in thought. It was nice.” He had told her in a voice that was so soft she was almost lulled back into sleeping.

She has blushed and immediately rose from her chair in a rush. She suddenly found herself famished and wanted dinner immediately. She couldn’t meet his eyes after he said that, she felt almost embarrassed.

She’s started taking long walks around the castle and exploring the large palace recently too. She enjoyed exploring some of the areas inside that she just never knew about. She’s seen the many rooms with covered furniture and dust collecting inside of them. She did somehow find her way up to the observatory. It was clean and polished in there and clearly still in use. She walked up one night and laid on the floor starring up into the beautiful night sky. She couldn’t remember when she had last done that either. She was taking time to breathe.

Gwen hadn’t realized how overwhelmed she felt recently. She feels like she’s been holding her breath for so long and she can finally exhale now. 

She cried the night she observed the stars by herself, not because she was sad, but because she finally felt like she could be herself.

She’s just felt so trapped, not by Kevin or the Plumbers, but herself. She’s spent so much of her life living for her brother and her parents. Gwen doesn’t know what she wants. She hasn’t really thought about what makes her happy.

Obviously magic makes her happy, but it felt like such a chore lately. It’s turned into her job and not a hobby. That’s not to say that she still doesn’t love it, but it’s different now.

She had to think about what she loved and what truly made her have that spark of joy.

After days of Gwen just relaxing and thinking about her life, she realizes she does love doing other things.

She loves spending time alone with Rook, when they just relax and ready in the library together.

She’s secretly happy when Ben stops her in the middle of the day just to see what she’s doing, even if she’s in the middle of doing an important task.

She thinks it’s hilarious when Max tries to cook a strange meal and Rook, Ben, Kevin, and her are who he experiments with.

She appreciates that Kevin understands more than anyone that sometimes she wants to be with people but can’t find it in herself to engage, so he just sits silently in a room with her.

Gwen honestly loves any free time she spends with Kevin ironically enough.

He was the person who she never thought she would get along with. She finds the most common ground with him though. Kevin understands that she doesn’t want to live in the same high energy space that Ben seems to run around in. Kevin notices her childish behaviors and lets her air them, which she could never do at home. He doesn’t judge her for them. He always eats at least one meal with her and Gwen finds it very charming. He knows she can fight and doesn’t back down from that when they spar. He’s definitely knocked her around on the field and expects her to do the same. He’s confident in her abilities and powers when she doesn’t even know up from down sometimes. Kevin somehow always knows when Gwen’s in a sour mood and almost always fixes it somehow. She loves all of this about him.

She’s smiling to herself as she thinks about all of these qualities about him.

Her mind wanders and starts thinking about the other day. She’s thinking about how Kevin leaned his weight into her and softly pressed his forehead to hers. It was so gentle and not what she expected. The most contact she’s had with Kevin is holding onto him, and she initiates those interactions. Just thinking about Kevin leaning into her space so intimately makes her body flush and feel hot.

Kevin’s interactions with her always leave her a little flustered at the end of the day. She finds the juxtaposition of how Kevin looks and acts when it comes to her sometimes jarring. She never expected him to be so… soft. He looks to be all hard edges, literally and figuratively, but she’s found the sweet spot where he’s squishy. He’s so easy to be with and she can’t help but enjoy those moments that they have alone. She knows those are hers, those small intimate moments where he lets his guard down only for her.

Gwen’s mind is flooded with only thoughts of Kevin as she thinks about her past few months in the castle with him and everyone else. As she stares at the plant under her, she’s not really thinking about it at all. Her hands grip the potted plant loosely and start to glow a beautiful light shade of blue. It covers over the plant and when Gwen’s mana finally stops rushing out of her fingertips, a small budding plant is before her.

Gwen blinks and can’t believe her eyes. She didn’t even notice herself channeling her mana. She almost didn’t notice if it wasn’t for the intense blue glow coming from herself.

She stares down at the small freshly green plant as it starts to grow once more. It blooms into a small bud before her. It’s pure white as it faces her. She’s so happy that she’s finally accomplished saving this plant.

She squeals loudly and stands up in a rush. Gwen grabs her small, very much alive, plant and runs off the find Verdona. Gwen turns into the library and Verdona stands there already waiting for her. She eyes the plant in Gwen’s hands and smiles at her.

“I knew you’d do it.” She smiles at her.

“We can start training now, right?” Gwen asks impatiently smiling broadly at the older woman.

Her grandmother laughs lightly and nods her head in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we just had Argit finding out some VITAL information in that last chapter but lets have Gwen be happy for like one more day please.   
> Because lord knows how this group is going to react to that info.   
> I'm doing a lot of in depth character thought chapters and I love doing these, it's a lot of fun to get in their heads and process the information through them.   
> I hope you're enjoying this! I know this week the chapters have been small, my work week has been super hectic, but I'm excited to know what you think!  
> I think I'll try to update one more time this week, but no promises. <3


	29. Don't Shoot the Messenger

Gwen’s in Kevin’s study reading over the text Verdona gave her to study for the week. It’s a handful of spells but all are pretty crucial in mana manifestation and understanding. They’re attack spells that focus on the use of mana itself instead of mana manipulating other resources. Gwen’s actually excited because it can add some damage beyond her mana spheres that she slings. Verdona has given her texts that were written in the original magical text. Which has been hard for her to get through and translate for herself, with no help from Verdona. She’s enjoying it nonetheless.

Kevin’s silently going over paper work signing away on documents as well as signing legislature. She’s impressed with Kevin’s work ethic, not that she thought Kevin wasn’t capable of doing his duties as a prince, she’s just pleasantly surprised by how studious he is. Knowing that he’s been behind the laws and regulations of the kingdom for the past few years, she really respects him. The quiet shuffle of papers moving and their breathing is the only noise that can be heard. It’s peaceful. Gwen’s been spending almost any free time away from Verdona in Kevin’s study with him. They don’t necessarily have to talk to each other, just the presence is comforting to her.

Well it’s comforting until Ben barges into the room, which is almost every single day.

Right on time the door almost slams open from the force of Ben as he strolls casually into the study. Rook is behind him and like every day he gently closes the door behind him.

Ben slides over to Kevin’s desk and sits on top of it, rocking it slightly. Kevin sighs and looks up begrudgingly at Ben.

“Yes Tennyson?” Kevin asks acknowledging his friend’s presence.

Ben starts babbling off to him and Gwen can’t be bothered to pay attention right now.

Rook has already made his way over to her to have their own side conversation. Gwen has already marked her book and closed it giving Rook her full attention.

“How is the training with Grand Mage Verdona coming along?” he asks her.

Gwen sighs and rests her chin in her hand as she looks up at the blue feline.

“Honestly? It’s the strangest experience. It’s not like traditional learning at all.” She says as she runs her hand over the cover of the book she’s holding.

Rook hums in acknowledgement, “Are you at least happy with what you are learning?”

Gwen glances over at Ben and Kevin and notices they were in deep conversation before glancing back at Rook.

“Yes and no… I want to ask her about Kevin and his… his situation.” She says to him quietly. “I mean I know that’s _why_ I’m even here but I really want to help him.”

Rook stares at Gwen and she can’t tell what he’s looking for. She opts to avoid his eyes and turn back to Kevin.

A beat of silence passes before he responds to her, “I think he would appreciate that. I know we all would love for him to return to normal.” Rook follows her stare and lands his own eyes on Ben.

Ben’s animatedly recalling a story to Kevin with exaggerated arm movements and a large grin plastered on his face. Kevin’s also smiling up at his best friend.

Gwen glances back over to Rook and sees his face soften to a small smile as he looks at Ben and Kevin.

“They really love each other, don’t they?” she questions him.

Rook sighs and turns back to Gwen, “Yes they do. They will not talk about anything from before it seems.” Rook rubs his face slightly in frustration.

“What do you mean before?” she presses.

He gives her a confused look before responding, “Before his transformation. They refuse to talk about it at all. The coronation, anything that happened that day. They have not said a word to each other about it since Kevin returned to the castle.” He tells her like it was common knowledge.

Her face falters, “That’s not healthy at all.” She states flatly.

Rook crosses his arms over his chest and nods his head in agreement.

“You are as they say, ‘preaching to the choir’, I have told Ben countless times to talk to him. He refuses.” He sighs and watches the two of them silently.

Gwen ponders on this information and leans more of her weight into her hand as she also stares at the two in conversation.

Ben stops mid-sentence and turns to look at Rook and Gwen who are staring them down.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Ben starts rubbing his face aggressively. “Seriously guys it’s not funny when you let me walk around with smoothie still on my face!”

Rook rolls his eyes at Ben, “No your face is surprisingly clean for once. We were just admiring you two.”

The three suddenly have red as tomato faces. Gwen feels her whole-body flush in embarrassment. Ben blushes but he smiles softly at Rook. Kevin refuses to make eye contact with anyone, his chin is resting in his hand as he turns away from the group.

Rook’s face is confused as he looks at his friends curious to their reactions.

“What? Did I say something wrong?” he asks them genuinely.

Gwen covers her face with her hands, “No Rook, I just wasn’t ready for you to be so blunt.” She says, her voice muffled by her hands.

Ben coughs loudly into his hands and jumps off of Kevin’s desk. He walks over to Rook and grabs his hand leading him out of the room.

“We’re gonna go! See you guys later!” Ben rushes out and drags Rook behind him quickly trying to escape.

Kevin still refuses to turn his head and look to Gwen and she’s still pushing her face into her hands.

Minutes go by before either one of them says anything. Kevin breaks the silence first.

“Were you?” he asks quietly. His face still unmoving, he’s avoiding Gwen’s eyes.

Her head moves up to look at him in confusion, “Were we what?”

Kevin huffs to himself, “Were you guys, ya know, admiring us or whatever?” he clarifies for her.

His voice is so quiet Gwen almost misses what he was asking. She starts giggling to herself, and her giggles turn into full on laughter.

“What’s so funny?!” Kevin exclaims, now embarrassed himself, he turns his head sharply to glare at her.

“No no no! I’m sorry I’m not laughing at you!” She puts up her hands in defense as she continues to giggle profusely. “I just wasn’t expecting you to ask for clarification like that!”

Kevin is full on pouting at Gwen now, his glare less harsh but there none the less. Kevin eyes shift away from her shaking body in his own slight embarrassment.

She stands up and walks over to his desk, trying to control her soft laughter. She leans over his desk and gently turns his face towards her. She holding his face, her hands both lightly gripping his sharp jawline. She forces him to look at her.

Kevin’s eyes find hers easily and her sharp green eyes pierce into him. She’s grinning at him.

“Seriously, it was just really cute how you asked. I wasn’t expecting that.” She tells him softly.

Gwen sees Kevin’s whole face flush three shades darker and his eyes widen slightly at her bold word choice.

She realizes herself how intimate she’s being. Her whole body is pressed against his desk as she leans into his personal space. She’s gently holding his face in her hands and staring into his eyes. She feels like she’s burning from the inside and brings her hands back to her own body, she pulls away like she touched fire and turns her own face to avoid his gaze.

“Anyway, um we were talking about you and Ben.” She mumbles out casually and returns to her own chair.

He seems to have come out of his own stunned daze and is seriously looking at Gwen now. Curiosity has overtaken him being flustered.

“Why were you guys talking about us?” He asks her in a serious tone.

Gwen avoids looking at him by opening her book, but notices his voice change, “Just how close you guys are...” She trails off, not wanting to step on Kevin’s toes by telling him what else Rook and her discussed.

Kevin nods to himself but doesn’t push her for more information. She knows he’s suspicious of their conversation but he won’t make her tell him. She can tell he wants to ask her, the way she can see his body fidget gives him away.

It’s not her business to tell Kevin that him and Ben should air their grievances. As much as she wants to tell them to talk about their shared trauma, that’s not how it works. Those two have to do it on their own. She won’t push either of them to do something they’re not comfortable with.

It doesn’t stop her from worrying about them. She’ll always worry about them, it’s ingrained in her now. The same way she worries about her older brother.

As she starts to think about Ken the door to Kevin’s study opens again.

Only this time Ben and Rook are accompanied by Argit.

The mood in the room changes drastically as the rodent scurries into the room. Ben closes the door behind him and Rook and leans against the wall near the door.

Kevin sits up straight and puts everything down to address Argit. Rook stands behind the smaller alien, just in case. Gwen stands up and is clutching her skirt tightly to keep herself from demanding where Argit’s been for the past two weeks.

“Where’s Gwen’s brother Argit?” Kevin asks him sternly.

“Sooo uh, about that Kev…” Argit trails off and rubs his neck.

“Argit.” Kevin growls out at the smaller alien.

“Okay listen!” Argit puts his hand up in mock surrender. He backs up but his back hits Rook’s body.

“Don’t shoot the messenger! I did find him. He’s just, maybe, possibly, been recruited by the Forever Knights.” Argit rushes out and flinches after he finishes.

“Are you serious right now Argit? I swear to god if you aren’t-” Kevin starts but gets cut off.

“Yes, I’m serious, I was in their hideout! I coulda died you guys!” he screeches at Kevin.

“Wait you _found_ their hideout?” Ben says from his place next to the door.

“Yea it’s in a warehouse storage unit downtown. The place is empty but that’s just its disguise, the floor opened up and one of the Knights took him down with him.” Argit tells Ben.

“What do we do now?” Gwen’s voice is meek as she asks the group of men before her. “I can’t let him just be sucked into that! He can’t work for people like that, he’ll get eaten alive!” she starts rambling off and shaking.

Her brothers done the worst-case scenario that they all just hoped wouldn’t happen. He found the Forever Knights and Gwen knows how smart her brother is, he’s made amazing things in the past. He’s going to help them make something to attack. She knows that is the outcome.

“Gwen hey, look at me.” Kevin’s in front of her, one hand pressing lightly onto her shoulder for weight.

She looks up at Kevin, she can feel how shallow her breathing is.

“They want to _use_ him! You don’t know how smart he is, and he’s seen you! If Morningstar went back to them then there’s another person who knows all about you Kevin. They’re going to use my brother to make a weapon and _you_ will be the target.” She’s babbling and she knows that, but she also knows everything that Michael Morningstar told her about the Forever Knights. She knows they only want to make sure Kevin dies.

She takes a deep breath and looks at Kevin sincerely, “Michael told me Kevin, he told me that their main goal is to destroy you. I know that you guys don’t seem too concerned with that, but if they have my brother you should be worried.”

“What should we do?” Rook asks the room.

Kevin squeezes Gwen’s shoulder lightly before turning to the rest of the room. He looks over Ben and Rook’s faces and Argit squirming ready to bolt.

“Where’s the storage unit Argit? I think we need to make a friendly visit to our neighbors.” Kevin says with a feral smile.

“Are we finally gonna kick their asses? I’ve been ready for that for ages!” Ben replies haughtily from the doorway smiling at Kevin.

Rook shakes his head at Ben but agrees with Kevin, “We do have the upper hand. They will not be expecting any kind of ambush.”

“It’s settled then.” Kevin cracks his Vulpimancer knuckles and looks at everyone. “Everyone get ready, we’re going on a rescue mission.”

Something feels wrong in Gwen’s stomach, but she pushes it down. She has a weird gut feeling that something isn’t right with this plan. She wants her brother back though, and she’ll do anything if it means she can get him back sooner. She agrees against her own instincts yelling at her to not do it.

She just wants her brother back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's March and I cannot believe I've been writing this story for like 2 months now! I originally started this in June of 2020 and just forgot about it but I'm really happy you guys are reading it and enjoying it too. ;~; It makes me really happy


	30. Enchanted Twisting Rooms

She’s holding a mana shield above herself, Kevin, Rook, and Argit as rain pours down around them. Ben’s flying above them as his Necrofriggian alien, Big Chill. They’re waiting on Ben right now to find out how to get into the Forever Knights hideout. They've been outside in the pouring rain for well over an hour and Gwen is already a little irritated at everything and everyone around her.

Ben’s Necrofriggian form was able to phase through walls and be invisible, so its worked in their favor right now. They just needed to get the heads up from him that they could break in.

Which hiding Kevin’s large form wasn’t the easiest thing in the world as the group crouches in the trees surrounding the storage unit compound.

Gwen’s gut is screaming at her to turn around, that this isn’t a good idea. She pushes it down though. She feels safe with Kevin, Rook, and Ben. Argit’s debatable but it’s a three to one ratio on her side.

Ben phases out of the storage unit and waves at them to come over, he opens the doors for them and they sneak into the unit.

Once the group is inside they notice how empty the unit truly is. They’re only a few large crates that are all unopened and a few displays of armor.

“Where is the secret entrance?” Rook whispers to Argit.

“I told ya man, it’s in the floor. I think there’s a key pad on the wall but I didn’t get ahold of the code!” Argit harshly replies in a hushed tone.

“Hold on I’ll get it.” Ben huffs out and phases into the ground.

Gwen’s arms are crossed over her chest and she’s trying not to be jittery, but she’s definitely on edge. They didn’t even give a notice to Max or Verdona when they left. The only ones who knew they had even left were Pierce’s team. Which in hindsight may not have been their best move.

She can feel Kevin’s eyes on her, she knows that she is probably worrying him. She’s just anxious. For their safety and her brothers. She’s so overwhelmingly worried about Ken. She just wants her brother to come home.

Ben finds whatever it was he needed and the floor starts to shake aggressively. Gwen stumbles back into Kevin who holds her to his body.

Rook backs up into the wall and grips it and Argit goes rolling backwards. When the floor completely opens up they see Ben standing on the staircase waiting for them. He’s untransformed and is smirking up at them in a cocky manner.

Rook descends first followed by Gwen, Argit tries to squirm away but Kevin picks up his body easily and tosses him down the stairs.

Once the group is in they close the stairwell above them and stare into the pure white hallway.

The hallway looks endless and there are bright fluorescent lights that hang above them. It looks so overwhelmingly sterile. Gwen feels goosebumps go down her back but she pushes her edge down.

Ben leads the group slowly through the hallway, this is unknown territory and no one knows who or what they will find. Kevin stays in the back and keeps and eye behind them to see if anyone follows or comes in.

The hallway leads to an open entry way that splits into three directions. The group stops and looks at each other trying to decide what to do.

“We should split up. Does everyone have a Plumbers badge on them?” Rook asks the group.

Ben pulls his out and so does Kevin, Argit and Gwen are empty handed.

“I will take the left hallway alone.” Rook says pointing in the direction of the hall that is just as white and foreboding as the rest.

Ben nods his head in agreement, “Okay, keep your badge on and call one of us if anything happens. We’ll be your back up.”

Rook grabs Ben’s hand and squeezes it reassuringly and looks at the rest of the group.

“I’ll take Argit and we’ll go down the middle. Between the two of us we should be fine.” Kevin says.

“Aw Kev, I didn’t know you cared so much!” Argit says elbowing him.

“I don’t.” He replies gruffly, “I don’t trust you to not run away.”

Argit goes quiet but doesn’t disagree with what Kevin has to say.

“I’ll take Gwen with me then in the last hall.” Ben says clipping Gwen on the back.

“We all will call from our badges in case anything goes wrong right?” Ben asks eyeing Kevin and Argit suspiciously.

“Yes Tennyson, we’ll call if we need to. Let’s look for an hour and if we come up empty meet back here got it? If anything happens call and bail immediately. I don’t care what you have to do but get out.” Kevin says to the group.

“Also, if anyone finds Ken immediately call. Got it?” he adds before they disperse.

They all agree in some form of nonverbal confirmation.

Gwen walks beside Ben easily and the two journey into the middle hallway.

She doesn’t know what she’s expecting but she doesn’t expect anything to go smoothly. Especially with Ben.

The two walk in silence for around fifteen minutes before she starts to get antsy. Gwen hasn’t seen a single person or thing in this hallway. Nothing, no decorations and no life force. Ben’s been walking briskly down the hall, not bothering to be quiet or sneaky. Gwen would reprimand him but honestly, it’s getting concerning how dead the place is.

“Don’t you think it’s a little too quiet here for this to be the Forever Knight headquarters?” she asks Ben, unbothered about whispering anymore.

Ben turns to look at her and his face twitches into a frown, “I was thinking that too. I just didn’t want to be the one to say it.” He replies to her.

“Maybe it’s a trap?” she questions.

“They would have to know we were coming for that. No one saw Argit. Unless he’s ratted us out to the Forever Knights…” Ben replies calmly.

“Something just doesn’t feel right… Also, how long does this hallway go on for? I haven’t seen a single door!” Gwen states exasperatedly.

Ben stops walking and looks behind where they have come, he can barely see the original room they started in, but she’s right. There’s not a single door in this long hallway, no signs, and no form of directions at all. It feels off for sure.

“I don’t like this.” Ben states looking forward and still only seeing a long white hall in front of them.

Ben brings out his Plumbers badge and calls to Rook first, “Hey is your hallway just as empty as ours? No doors, no people? Going on forever?” he asks.

The noise in the communicator cuts for a minute before Rook’s voice cuts through the static, “Yes, it is. Have you contacted Kevin yet?” Rook prods.

“No, we haven’t. Keep an eye out Rook, I don’t like this. We might have walked into something we weren’t ready for.” Ben answers him.

He tries Kevin next and Gwen’s bouncing on her heels nervously.

“Kev, have you seen anything? Or is your hallway just as dead and empty as ours?” he asks his friend.

Static noises come through before Kevin’s deep voice cuts in, “Yea, it goes on for a while. I think it’s to distract people who are breaking in like we are. Keep pushing forward, it has to come to an end either with a new room or a literally dead end.”

Ben nods to Gwen and the two keep walking on, hoping that they at least come to a new room.

Gwen doesn’t know what’s worse, not seeing anyone in this underground facility or seeing real people and just trying to avoid them.

She thinks that she would rather be seeing people then guessing if people were even down here.

“Gwen can’t you track him? Ken, I mean.” Ben prompts curiously.

She shakes her head at him, “I have to have something with his residual mana on it. Anything I brought with me that was his doesn’t have any of his mana on it. It’s all my own. So, no I can’t track him.” She says sadly.

“If it was that easy I could have led us all in the right direction at least. I hate splitting up.” She’s looking ahead, trying to find any mana energy in the hallway to follow, but it’s as if nothing living has ever been here.

She finds it odd when she turns and tries to focus on her and Ben’s mana. There is nothing behind them where they've walked. No mana, as if they weren't really in this hallway at all. There is no blue trail behind them as they walk on. It’s like something is blocking her abilities.

She doesn’t need to tell Ben that though. She doesn’t want to worry him.

So, they continue. They walk for about another fifteen minutes before they finally land on a singular door.

At the end of a half hour walk of a hallway, was a singular door. Gwen’s alarm bells are going haywire. Something defiently isn’t right here.

Ben looks back and her in question of the door. She just shrugs at him and motions for him to open it. She’s tired of feeling paranoid and just wants to barrel through the walls right now.

Gwen fists her hands and manifests her bright blue mana and waits for Ben to open the door. She grounds her feet and prepares for the worst.

Ben flings open the door and the two are surprised to find an open room that looks nothing like a room at all. The room looks more like the middle of a forest than anything. Trees are lining the boarders of the room, acting as walls. There’s a small pond with a running stream in the corner. There’s a clear sky above them instead of a ceiling, and the two cousins seem genuinely confused. The floor isn’t even a tiled floor but clearly a dirt ground. Gwen knows it’s all real too because she can see the mana flowing in and out of everything. The wildest thing in the room is the girl who sits inside it.

She’s lounging casually on a random chaise drinking from a tea cup. She eyes them carefully, cocks a brow at them, before finishing her drink.

She looks older than either of them, and her hair is long and almost white. Her hair is pulled back into a long pony tail as it rests against her back all the way down to her waist. She’s clad in a magenta mage robe that cutes off and flares out at her hips. Her hands are covered in black fingerless gloves and her legs are completely wrapped in tight black pants and thigh high boots.

She stands with ease and tosses the teacup in her hands down to the ground and the delicate porcelain smashes loudly, the noise cutting through everything else.

Her heeled boots dig into the dirt as she walks closer to them. She stop a few feet away and places her hand on her hip and eyes the pair of cousins up and down.

Her eyes are just as bright pink as her robes and Gwen finds it unsettling, amongst other things that were happening in that moment.

“So, I assume you’re the little mage Michael told me about.” The new woman’s voice is deeper than Gwen thought and it’s mature. How calmly she’s talking to them after making her presence known is jarring. The room may be a peaceful illusion of nature but this woman is erratic like a storm. Her mana energy alone tells Gwen of that.

“Michael Morningstar?” Ben asks her.

The woman puts a hand up towards Ben, as if she’s telling him to stop, “I wasn’t talking to you Benjamin Tennyson.” She snarks out towards him.

Gwen doesn’t like this woman at all and her own hands haven’t stop holding her mana since Ben opened the door, she tempted to throw it at this woman. Her hands twitch at the thought.

“Gwendolyn Tennyson, right?” She asks her pointing at Gwen and smirking as if she knows some secret.

“How rude of us, you seem to know who we are but we haven’t been graced with your name.” Gwen bites out at the woman with hair white as snow.

She blinks at Gwen’s tone, her smirk falters only slightly, “You can call me Charmcaster, but you won’t need to know my name for very long.” She pulls a small pouch from behind her back and throws out stone balls that clatter to the ground. 

Ben looks at Gwen in confusion before the stone balls start shaking and growing in size.

Gwen doesn’t give the woman time to think about anything else as she starts throwing her blue mana at her. Whoever this Charmcaster is, she isn’t an ally.

Charmcaster easily leaps away from Gwen’s attacks and dodges them like she’s dancing gracefully around a child. It pisses her off. Gwen stops her barrage and tries to reevaluate how to attack.

The stone orbs grow and grow until they become large stone golems. Ben stumbles back a bit and turns his omnitrix to any alien he can use right now. He lands on his Methanosian alien he calls Swamfire. He feels his bones break and shift into the new DNA and he easily feels himself twist into the plant like alien.

Ben moves his plant like body easily and dodges some of the first swings from the stone golems. One does land a clean punch and hits Ben directly in the face. He’s thrown to the ground and rolls away from Gwen.

He groans and sits up quickly seeing the three large stone golems coming for him. He puts his large hands up and quickly shots at them with fire. It pushes them back away from him and gives him time to stand up and prepare himself.

Ben quickly shoves his hands to ground and produces thick roots to spring from the ground, he wraps one of the golems easily and crushes it to dust. The two other golems start to stumble over the large roots that have sprung from the ground.

Charmcaster sees this and grumbles to herself before yelling, “Can’t you clods do anything right!”

Gwen is still facing Charmcaster and throws her own spells at her while she’s mildly distracted, “ _Incendium Ipingo_!” she shouts thrusting her hands forward at the woman in front of her.

A large expanse of fire is twisting from Gwen’s hands directed at Charmcaster. The woman doesn’t even try to dodge and surprises Gwen.

She puts her own hand out and casts, “ _Tempestus_!” Her hands glow a bright magenta and the water from the small pond comes flying toward Charmcaster as she uses it easily to make a wall blocking Gwen’s attack with ease.

Gwen’s face falters and she stumbles over her own footsteps slightly. She didn’t think anyone else around here could control mana like she could. Charmcaster reads the shock on her face and laughs at her mockingly.

“Come on little mage, don’t you have anything else in your books? Don’t tell me you so ignorantly thought only you could produce magic?” she cackles at Gwen.

Gwen’s own composure is lost if only for a second but it opens up enough room for Charmcaster to land a direct hit.

 _“Vitalis Eruptum!”_ She says clearly.

Vines erupt from the ground and warp around Gwen tightly. They start to crush her and she feels her ribs start to bruise and finds it harder to breath.

  
“Don’t worry little miss mage, you clearly weren’t ready for me.” Charmcaster mocks her. She flips her hair back and walks gracefully towards Gwen, as she continues to be crushed by the vines.

“You know who else won’t be ready? That prince of yours. Oh, what’s his name again?” Charmcaster starts tapping her chin in thought.

“Oh, that big idiotic lug. Devin? Levin? Nevin? I just can’t remember!” Charmcaster's voice pitches in an irritating tone that makes Gwen want to rip her own eardrums out. With every name that comes out of Charmcaster’s mouth she tightens the vines wrapped around Gwen. Gwen’s pain is growing and she’s sure she feels a rib or two crack. She racking her brain for a spell, anything to escape these vines.

She’s seeing red though as Charmcaster mocks Kevin in front of her.

“His name is Kevin.” She huffs softly, trying to keep her breath.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I can’t hear you doll, try again?” she replies smiling at her sadistically.

Gwen’s had enough of this girl mocking her and finally recalls a spell she hasn’t tried but is willing to gamble on it saving her, she’s furious at this stranger mocking her friends and herself.

Gwen’s eyes glow a bright blue as she locks her eyes with Charmcaster, the woman’s face falls from her mockery to something akin to fear.

"I said his name is Kevin! _Potentia Displodo!”_

A large mass of Gwen’s mana surrounds her, Gwen can feel herself pulling the mana from the many living things around her to aid her attack. The mana explodes outwards directed only at Charmcaster and sends her all the way back across the forest and she lands with a sick crack on the chaise lounge she was sitting in earlier.

The vines slack and wither away releasing Gwen. She falls to the ground and her vision blurs. She notices Charmcaster’s unmoving body and hopes she knocked the woman unconscious.

Ben is next to her in seconds grabbing at her and helping her up, no longer Swampfire.

Ben looks over at the woman Gwen flung across the filed and notices her breathing still. If she can still breath she can get back up. Ben wraps one arm around Gwen’s waist and pulls her arm over his shoulder.

“Come one Gwen we gotta get out of here! Who knows what the others are dealing with!” Ben rushes out and starts dragging Gwen away and back into the hallway they came in from.

Only this time when they walk through the door it leads them directly back to the main room they started in, hallway gone.

Gwen realizes that Charmcaster has probably enchanted the hallways they were in and knew they were coming.

“She’s tricked us, she sent us all out on a wild goose chase. We were never in any long hallway. There’s only three rooms Ben.” Gwen huffs out to him.

Ben nods at Gwen and grabs his Plumbers badge, he tries to call Kevin but all he gets is static on the end. He tries Rook next and he picks up but Ben can hear attacks from the other end of the static.

“Rook! Rook it’s a trap! We meet another mage and she created this illusion! Rook!” Ben shouts into his badge.

Rook huffs from the other end but still responds.

“That is good to know! I am a little preoccupied with Morningstar right now Ben! I could use some back up please if you can get here quickly.”

Ben holds Gwen tightly to his body and turns toward the door that now stands before them to the left instead of a hallway.

“Do you think you can do this Gwen?” Ben asks her.

She nods her head, “Yea, just get in there and help Rook. The sooner we grab him we can find Kevin.” She mutters to him.

Ben nods his head and swings open the door.

This room is nothing like the one they had just left, it’s empty and void of everything but Michael and Rook. The room is just as white as the hallways were and Rook is shooting his gun at the rogue Morningstar.

Morningstar looks different than when they last saw him, his face is completely covered by some strange metal medieval mask. His body is completely covered from head to toe in black robes and his energy beams he’s directing toward Rook are black now instead of gold.

“Oh look! If it isn’t lovely Gwen and her knight! I’m so glad you brought my meal to me on a silver platter Tennyson!” Michael laughs manically at the two.

“Not likely Morningstar!” Ben shouts at him and slams his omnitrix once more.

He turns into Swampfire again and Ben immediately shoots his vines out at him to wrap around Morningstar’s body. Ben slams him down to the ground easily.

“The names Darkstar now!” he uses his own energy and bursts out of Ben’s vines and starts flying directly towards Gwen.

Gwen’s ribs are in pain, but she still has some juice left. She uses her mana and surrounds herself in a blue shield and Michael slams his body into it and falls backwards. 

Rook immediately comes up behind him and body slams him back into the tiled floor before he can readjust and pick himself back up.

He’s acting feral and manic and he starts thrashing against Rook, but Rook slams his elbow down into Darkstar’s neck.

Michael starts chocking and gagging on his own spit. Rook picks him up and throws him chest first into the ground and brings his wrists behind his back easily.

Rook brings out energy absorbing cuffs and locks him in them easily.

Gwen let’s out a sigh and lets her shields down. Ben comes up next to them and also lets out a sigh of relief.

Michael is thrashing around on the ground and screaming at the top of his lungs and hacking.

Gwen looks down at him and she’s disgusted and saddened by the poor excuse of a man.

Ben grabs her like he did before and the three of them exit the room. The three of them stare at the door that’s left and Rook kicks it down easily.

In the room is Argit with his back prickled up and shooting his quills at the other side of the room. Kevin’s half aware of his surroundings as he stumbles over his own feet. Across the room is a man in a full knight outfit and gear glaring Kevin down. Next to him is a small red headed man with a weapon that is clearly a prototype and seems to be working against Kevin.

Gwen gasps as she sees Ken standing next to the Forever Knight and using his weapon to attack Kevin.

She doesn’t know what to think and her ribs are still killing her. Her visions starting to blur but she doesn’t really care right now. She just wants to protect Kevin and get her brother back. God please, let her save them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO  
> anyway I love writing for Charmcaster!!!!! She's just f u n omg.  
> Anyway let me know what yall thought because it's getting HEATED real fast.


	31. Family Feud

Kevin’s vision is blurry, his ears are ringing, and he cannot believe he almost passed out from the shock waves of that weapon prototype Gwen’s brother is holding in his hands. His body wants to give out and he’s heaving to try and breathe right now.

He still doesn’t completely understand how they walked into this trap. His hindsight has never been the best though, in any account. Maybe he should really reevaluate his plans in the future, if he has a future.

Walking into his enemy’s palm definitely ranks pretty high on his list of bad ideas. Next time he should really run his plans by more than just Ben. Ben’s just as impulsive as he is about jumping the gun and hoping everything works out. 

Kevin can’t really tell what’s going on while he’s on the ground. He knows he’s nauseous and he’s pretty sure the Forever Knight with Ken has cracked one of his ribs, but outside of that he cannot tell what is happening in the room. His body is screaming at him to stop moving, the pain he feels is burning like a hot iron. His vision is swimming and he has to shut his eyes tight or he won’t be able to hold back the bile that’s sitting in the back of his throat.

He vaguely hears Argit’s voice but he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He can’t tell how long he’s been in this room, nor does he have any idea where the others are. He hopes they’re not having the same level of difficulty as him. 

He feels soft warm hands touch him lightly and he feels his body instantly relax. He knows it’s Gwen, his muscles completely melt under her touch. No one else touches him like he’s delicate, except for her.

He turns his head to look up from the ground and she is crouched next to him, and she’s softly holding his head in her hands.

He sees her mouth moving but his ears are still pounding. He doesn’t know what she’s saying. Even if her can’t hear her he’s still trying to pay attention to her, but his eyes feel so heavy.

He starts to close his eyes again, feeling a wave of comfort run through his body knowing that Gwen’s holding him.

He can just close his eyes for a second…

“Kevin!” Gwen’s voice pierce’s through, loud and clear.

“Kevin please, please, please get up! Ben and Rook can’t hold that knight back forever.” She’s hurrying through her words and her grip on his face is firm.

“Please you can’t pass out!” She pleads with him, her voice breaking. 

Kevin groans and opens his eyes slightly, “What’s, what’s going on?” he asks her.

He can see that she looks beaten, there’s a few rips and tears in her clothes and it looks like she’s fallen in dirt somewhere. He has no idea where that could have come from. She looks worn and tired, and he wants to smooth out the furrow in her brow.

Gwen’s looking over her shoulder to watch Ben and Rook before she snaps her head back to Kevin.

“It’s a long story, but we have to go! C’mon!” She’s trying to help Kevin sit up but there’s another blur of bright orange in Kevin’s peripheral view.

Kevin’s weight sends him back to the ground and he groans loudly. Gwen’s soft warm hands have left his skin and he feels like he’s drowning without her grasp on him.

His head hits the tiled floor hard and he squints his eyes shut trying to hold his nausea back. He thinks the room will spin again if he opens his eyes. Or he’ll start to see double of everyone and he doesn’t need that right now. Who knew that 200 volts to his large body could hurt so much?

He hears Gwen’s voice again and she’s arguing, he thinks. Her hears the pitch in her voice change more than he can hear what she’s saying. It sounds like when she’s chastising him.

“Ken, you don’t know what you’re doing, please stop!” he hears her yell.

“What do you mean stop Gwen? He kidnapped you! Why are you trying to protect him?” Ken’s voice is shaking, Kevin can hear the hesitant fear that lays there.

He tries to sit himself up again but feels the excruciating electrical shock from before.

He screams and his eyes fly open. He can see Ken aiming his gun at him and Gwen moving, almost in slow motion. Everything around him feels like its either too slow or on hyper speed. His brain is buzzing and mush and he thinks this is what it feels like to die.

Everything goes fuzzy, his body is convulsing from the electricity shooting through his body, he can’t hold back his howls of pain and it shacks him to his core. He sounds monstrous he’s sure.

He feels the pain stop almost as quickly as it started and his large form sags into the floor. He wants the ground to swallow him whole and drag him down into it, have the earth swaddle him.

He knows he can’t take another hit, he might die from this kind of torture.

He can’t hear anything but he can vaguely see what is happening. Gwen’s put a shield around him, and he only knows that because everything has a light blue hue to it.

She’s using one hand to protect him and her other to use her mana and grab her brothers’ weapon.

He sees her mouth moving and what he thinks are tears running down her eyes, but he can’t really tell. Everything was a god-awful haze. She was phasing in and out of focus for him and he was trying with everything to pay attention to his surroundings.

He is vaguely aware of someone else grabbing his body, but he can’t tell who it is. This person is much rougher with him than Gwen was. They finally help Kevin sit up completely. He realizes it’s Rook who’s next to him and is trying to help haul back up to his feet.

He stumbles over himself but finally can stand up. Rook is trying to flank one side of his body and he can feel Ben on the other side. He’s one of his larger aliens, the Tetramand one, but Kevin really can’t be bothered to care to much. He’s back on his feet but just barely.

He is hyper focused on Gwen, who’s blocking and shielding them as well as arguing with her brother.

“Why are you protecting them?! They kidnapped you what are you doing Gwen?” Ken is screaming at his sister. His tone is harsh and demanding and it makes Kevin wonder why they were even trying to find him.

“They didn’t kidnap me Ken! I offered to stay so you could go, I’m perfectly fine.” She shouts right back to him.

“Why won’t you just listen to me!” Ken shouts interrupting his sister. She’s trying to hold her focus and keep Ken’s weapon held tightly in her grasp, but Kevin can tell her irritation is building.

“Ken please, just calm down. Kevin’s _not_ a monster and I need you to come back with me. Please? It’s about our family.” She’s pleading with Ken, her voice cracks as she asks him.

“What about our family? About how you lied to me about your powers? Or the part where you’ve clearly been brainwashed!” He rolls his eyes at his sister, “Gwen I’m just trying to protect you!” he tries to yank his weapon out of her mana vice, but he doesn’t get very far.

Gwen’s grip tightens and she starts to crush Ken’s weapon in her grasp. Her face scrunches up in offense, “Brainwashed?” She scoffs at him, “I can’t believe you would say that!” she pulls his weapon out of hands and throws it back across the room and it smashes to the ground.

The noise echoes throughout the room.

“The _last_ thing I need is to be protected!” She’s released all of her mana as she stomps towards her older brother.

“I’m not a child anymore Ken! I don’t need to be protected, I can handle myself just fine and make my own choices. I’m grown!” she says in a serious tone.

“I’m just trying to keep our family together Gwen! Why do you want to be with them?!” Ken asks her, his voice pitches as he looks down at his sister, tears brimming his eyes.

“I’m your _brother_.” He says to her softly.

“Ken, they introduced me to our family. We still have living family, we’re not alone and we don’t have to be anymore!” she grabs her brothers’ hand and her face says enough to know that she’s taking a risk and praying that he’ll drop it and listen to her.

“We can be together again. What part of that aren’t you getting?” her face is pulled tight in anguish. Her emotions bleed and pour out of her so easily.

“She’s lying to you Kenneth. She’s been corrupted by that monster for too long.” The Forever Knight claims from his side of the room.

He’s been observing all of them since the rest of Kevin’s group came barreling into the room. Kevin realizes that the Forever Knight was only playing with Ben and Rook. He wanted to hear what Gwen had to say to Ken. He’s playing them all and toying with Ken’s emotional state. They’ve walked right into his plan.

He starts slowly walking toward the pair of siblings, his armor clattering and his footsteps heavy.

Ken looks at Gwen hesitantly. He’s questioning if she’s telling him the truth.

“Ken please, why would I lie about our family? Yes, it’s sad and it’s broken but at least it ours.” She tells him, she grabs his hands and holds them tightly.

“They just want to use you Kenneth, like they’re using her!” the deep voice of the Forever Knight cuts through harshly.

“Why else would they only look for you now? Why should your captor try to find you again, if not for their own gain?” he smoothly tells Ken.

“I mean your sisters clearly gained so much through them, you mentioned her magical abilities, and look how much she’s developed without you.” He says smugly looking at Gwen.

Kevin feels his own anger and fury building. They’re all being mocked and messed with emotionally. If Gwen can’t convince her brother, she’ll push him further into siding with the Forever Knights. Kevin feels his hands start to clench.

“That’s not true! The Forever Knights are using you to make weapons Ken, they just want to kill Kevin!” she says her face is burning red from anger and she’s looking at her brother like he’s ripping her apart. Which Kevin’s sure that’s how she feels.

Ken pulls his hands away from Gwen’s grip, he refuses to look in her eyes.

“Then why did you only try to find me now? Why didn’t you come sooner? Why are you prioritizing them?!” He asks her.

“Because I was trading my freedom for yours! You were supposed to go home, I _thought_ you were home! We went looking for you because Grandma Verdona came to the castle and it turns out we have a Grandpa and cousins and we have a family Ken! I _love_ you, I’m not putting them before you! I’m saying that they are here for us.” She’s rambling and running her words together quickly trying to make Ken listen to her.

“You mean the family who abandoned us? The one’s who left us out to dry when mom and dad died? _That_ family?” Ken spits out at her.

“What?” Gwen’s face is struck by confusion.

“They all abandoned us, when we were little Gwen. They didn’t want anything to do with us and they made that perfectly clear.” He scoffs at her, “Hell, even Grandma didn’t stay too long or bothered to check on us.” He said turning from her and walking toward the Forever Knight.

“That’s not the whole story and you know it isn’t!” she screams at him, her tears are flowing down her face, her anguish and loss of control can be seen clearly on her face. She looks overwhelmed.

Kevin’s watching Gwen fight a losing battle, he would know he’s been in too many. He’s seeing her struggle with her own family and arguing about the truth.

What even is the truth anymore? Kevin’s lied and swindled his way through a majority of his youth. In fact, he was probably the most untrustworthy out of the bunch next to Argit.

He knows Gwen isn’t though. If anyone seems confident in her own feelings and thoughts, it’s her. He’s watching her crumble under her own feelings and the weight of her actions. Things that are being twisted and turned into something vile and not true at all.

The manipulation the Forever Knight is using is working on the two siblings and Kevin’s rage burns bright now.

“You’re on the wrong side of this Gwen. You’ll thank me when it’s over.” Ken says as he stands next to the Forever Knight. “You lied when you said Tennyson’s stick together.” He adds on, striking a chord clearly inside of Gwen.

Gwen’s face falls at her brothers’ words, she’s wrapped her arms tightly around her torso and she’s gripping herself so hard her fingers are white.

Kevin still isn’t completely stable, he knows because he’s leaning a lot of his weight into Ben and Rook right now. Especially since in this time Ben has gone back to normal, so two very small men are trying to balance Kevin’s form. He brushes them off and wobbles his way over to Gwen.

He places one of his hands on her shoulder, to act as comfort but also so he won’t fall over. The little movement has him heaving, his breathes are shallow as he sends a glare so fierce it could peel wall paper towards Ken and the Forever Knight.

“Why would Gwen lie about this? When have you ever known her to lie to you? Because I’ve known her for only a few months and I can promise you she’s not a liar. Not to someone she cares about, which happens to be you, her _brother_!” Kevin growls out at him. 

Ken is shrinking back into himself, his eyes are wide as he looks at Kevin. He has no idea if Ken is listening to him but Kevin pushes on, hoping that he can knock some sense into him.

“She gains nothing from trying to deceive you! All she wants is to be with her family which includes you! You’re the most important part to her. What is wrong with you? Seriously something has to be wrong in that genius brain of yours to think that she wants to con you!” He’s shaking from his anger building and Kevin can see that he’s scaring Ken. Which is the opposite of what he wanted, but he feels so overwhelmingly offended for Gwen.

“You don’t know anything about our family! You’re a _monster_ , what would you even know about family?” Ken scoffs at Kevin, knowing he’s at a safe distance and half hidden by the Forever Knight he’s with.

The tense air in the room feels like a wire that’s finally snapped.

Ben’s voice cuts in from the back, screaming deeply from his own lungs, “He knows everything about family! What could you possibly know about when you refuse to listen to the reasoning of your own sister!” Ben starts pushing forward towards the two but Rook stops him, hooking his arms underneath Ben’s armpits to stop him. He holds Ben’s body to his chest while Ben flails trying to break free, his face red from screaming.

“There’s so much you don’t know about and your brain couldn’t even comprehend! You don’t even know what the Forever Knights are doing do you?!” Ben’s voice is booming and his anger overflowing.

“Enough!”

The Forever Knight that’s blocking Ken’s shaking form pulls out a device and hit a few buttons on it. The room starts to shake and quake, it rocks everyone and forces them to regain their balance.

“Goodluck trying to escape, but we must be leaving. We have other business to attend too.”

The Forever Knight easily grabs Ken and drags him away and the two disappear into an unknown door.

Over the noise of the ground shaking there is a faint scream of Gwen’s name heard from the distance.

“What’s going on?!” Argit shrieks looking around at everyone with fear in his eyes.

“It seems that this is not a permanent facility. It is going to self-destruct and we need to get out and quickly!” Rook claims finally dropping Ben to the ground.

The earth is shaking hard beneath them, it’s rocking the room and cracks start to open up in the floor.

“We don’t have time and Kevin can barely move!” Gwen exclaims., “The room is coming down around us.”

Kevin is still holding onto her somewhat, but it’s loosely. He’s about to collapse and he knows it. They won’t make it out of this hell hole and he doesn’t know if Ben can even get everyone out. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think of a way out, but everything is mush and his whole-body is aching and telling him to just cave into the blackness.

“I have a plan!” Gwen tells everyone. She motions for them to huddle closer to her.

“I need everyone as close as possible, I’m going to try and shield us and propel us out of here. I don’t know if it’s going to work but it’s all I got.” She tells them.

“Go for it Gwen.” Ben tells her and latches himself onto Rook, almost comically.

Rook rolls his eyes, “Now is not the appropriate time for your strange behavior.” Rook mumbles to him.

Ben looks up at his much taller partner and pouts at him, “Well I didn’t think it was appropriate to hold me back from dragging Ken to the ground, but you still did it.”

“Guys seriously?! I need to concentrate.” Gwen reprimands them.

Kevin watches as Gwen casts her blue shield around all of them. It’s small and tighter than her normal shields.

Gwen’s hands are still bright blue and she closes her eyes to concentrate. Sweat is building on her brow and beyond her barrier the room is collapsing all around them. Large chunks of earth are falling down into the room and there’s broken tile all around them.

When Gwen finally opens her eyes again, the whites and iris of her eyes are gone, replaced by a glowing cerulean blue.

“ _Attollo_ ” she says calmly and the small area the group is on launches itself from the ground and sends them up through the ground.

The shield starts to crack as they go up, but it never breaks. It only takes them around five minutes to make it above ground and all five minutes are rocky, shaky, and dangerous. Kevin relates it to worst elevator ride he’s ever had, but they make it out.

Once they make it to the surface, they realize they have made it further out from the storage units than when they started. They’re closer to the construction area. Gwen lets her shield down once they are safe. The exhaustion hits her fast and hard and she starts to collapse, but Kevin catches her so she doesn’t hit the ground.

Her eyes are squeezed shut, but she’s conscious. She looks like she’s going to hurl and Kevin’s prepared to move her, but he hopes that she doesn’t for his sake honestly. She groans in frustration and presses the heel of her hands to her eyes.

“Don’t get up too fast.” Kevin murmurs to her.

She nods her head in agreement and just presses herself into Kevin’s chest. He feels her wet tears and the slight shake of her body and he presses her closer to him. She didn’t deserve this.

All of them feel defeated, sick, and drained.

Above all else, Max Tennyson wasn’t going to be happy when they tell him what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!!!!!  
> So some news, this story has not been updating every other day like it normally was.  
> That is because my job has asked more of me lately, I work 40+ hours some days from 7:30-2:30 and others 7:30-5   
> So I'm making it that I will update once a week by Wednesday or Thursday.  
> Hope you all enjoy this chapter its a little over 3000 words and we've hit a crucial moment.


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